NP - How do you sort your books?

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

On 12.08.2012 13:45, John Bailey wrote:

> Walter Benjamin's thoughts on unpacking his book crates during a move
> might be relevant here.
>
> http://townsendlab.berkeley.edu/sites/all/files/Benjamin%20Unpacking%20My%20Library.pdf
>
> "Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion
> borders on the chaos of memories."

When I read " ... one of the finest memories of a collector is the 
moment when he rescued a book to which he might never have given a 
thought, much less, a wishful look, because he found it lonely and 
abandoned on the market place and bought it to give it its freedom--", I 
felt at once reminded of something I read - unlike Benjamin's 
/Illuminationen/ - not too long ago. Now I've got it: In /Ex Captivitate 
Salus/ by Carl Schmitt, whom Benjamin studied closely, there is a 
half-sentence that goes as follows: The mysterious hand which guides our 
seizing of books ... ("Die geheimnisvolle Hand, die unseren Griff nach 
Büchern lenkt ...", p. 50). This also refers to the way we move inside 
our libraries.


> On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 9:01 PM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
> <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>> Colors are very important to me. That's why it always takes so long to
>> reorganize. Actually you have to live surrounded by your books to recognize
>> the fitting patterns.
>>
>> On 12.08.2012 11:19, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>>
>>
>> Alphabetically? Hardly! I create nests along genre, color, nationality etc.
>> To prevent this from becoming too sterile I place a good deal of book
>> completely illogical and add some more or less meaningful installations
>> like, for instance, putting Ratzinger's book on Christian mysticism
>> ("Schauen auf den Durchbohrten") in between an introduction to Voodoo and a
>> photography book by Nobuyoshi Araki. One effect of this practice is that I
>> fear removals (it always takes half a year to reorganize the library).
>> Another one that my wife seldom finds a book without asking me. But that's
>> OK: I need my personally designed library order to feel - at least a little
>> bit - at home in this world.
>>
>> On 12.08.2012 10:21, Kris Williams wrote:
>>
>> I start with genre, then alphabetically, then they get re-read, then I cross
>> reference, after that I spill wine on some pages...next thing you know,
>> Hemingway is sleeping with Platt, and Poe watches through a window.  Then I
>> start over with genre...sigh...
>>
>> On Aug 12, 2012 12:34 AM, "Prashant Kumar" <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> I've had to reorganise my collection recently and was idly wondering how
>>> plisters do it (if at all), and why?
>>>
>>> P.
>>
>>
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20120822/a9af679e/attachment.html>