03 / CULTURE

Books.

Reading, rereading and the logistical consequences of collecting thousands of them.

← Back to the cultural index

04 / The shelves

I collect books — thousands of them. Give me categories, variants and a finite checklist and I can probably collect almost anything. Shelves are merely an implementation detail.

Readingこころ

Natsume Sōseki

STAYED Der Steppenwolf

Hermann Hesse

Of Human Bondage

W. Somerset Maugham

The Atrocity Exhibition

J. G. Ballard

L’Étranger

Albert Camus

Dracula

Bram Stoker

Eye in the Sky

Philip K. Dick

Solaris

Stanisław Lem

NEXT / EVENTUALLYProject Hail Mary

Still waiting patiently in the enormous queue.

Thousands of books. The reading list is shorter than the collection. It would have to be.

READING / KEEPING

The library and the reading list are two different problems.

Reading is only part of it. Books are also objects, editions, translations, memory and the dangerous satisfaction of a finite set that looks as though it could be completed.

The titles here are therefore not a “best books” list. They are books that stayed, books in progress, and books waiting in a queue that grows faster than it shrinks.