“One surprise was the number of popular self-help books in the collection, and the care and attention with which he read and reread them. I mean stuff of the best-sellingest, Oprah-level cheesiness and la-la reputation was to be found in Wallace’s library. Along with all the Wittgenstein, Husserl and Borges, he read John Bradshaw, Willard Beecher, Neil Fiore, Andrew Weil, M. Scott Peck and Alice Miller. Carefully.”
We know there’s a lot of DFW-related material out there what with The Pale King hitting bookshelves and all, but this piece is a truly great read: “Inside David Foster Wallace’s Private Self-Help Library.”
