My partner asked me about my obsession with books tonight, and perhaps it bears some explanation.

Books, for me, are not just about their content, their words and the knowledge that can be gained form those words.

They are much more about their potential.

I love buying books. But I am well aware that I may never read all of them – I expect it would be impossible to do so. However, to see them all together makes me feel encouraged, I could possibly read them all. I am genuinely interested in the author’s works, otherwise I would not buy the books, but it’s enough perhaps to own the book, not to actually read it.

Hence it’s the effect of the book’s structure to create the space for potential. The physical make-up, the parts of the text – all treated as objects holding meaning beyond their meaning.

Each book is precious as an object, but—at a certain level—it is also equivalent and replaceable by every other book.

BOOKS—About books and potentiality by escdotdot is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International