Collections of Nothing by William Davies King
I look forward to the monthly emails from University of Chicago Press. Their free eBook program is a wonder. Their editors pick books that I usually haven't heard of. And, books that I enjoy without fail. I recommend this program highly.
The eBook for January 2012 is:
160 pages | 11 halftones | 5-1/2 × 8-1/2 | © 2008
I just downloaded it so I will have to let other reviewers give you their take. The download link follows.
"What makes this book, bred of a midlife crisis, extraordinary is the way King weaves his autobiography into the account of his collection, deftly demonstrating that the two stories are essentially one... His hard-won self-awareness gives his disclosures an intensity that will likely resonate with all readers, even those whose collections of nothing contain nothing at all."
—New Yorker
“King’s book is absolutely fascinating. At first I was wary. Was this going to be only a gnarled wry exegesis of a nutty preoccupation? But, rather quickly, he made the collecting an avenue into himself, his life, his world. It finishes as a unique autobiography, in a way quite endearing. And like all the best autobiographies, it is in some measure about the reader himself. The writing is very taking, almost as if it were fashioned by a fine craftsman yet with no sense of effort. Witty, especially perceptive, candid yet with an attractive humility.”
—Stanley Kauffmann, author of Albums of A Life: A Memoir
“Collections of Nothing is a terrific book. Wonderful and touching, it is informed by a deep sense of emptiness at the heart of materialism that echoes behind the text. It is not an academic book or an argument, but rather a strange hybrid, oscillating between memoir and meditation on collecting. Collectors will understand and empathize with William Davies King, who speaks to and of them.”
—Jas Elsner, author of Roman Eyes
“Part memoir and part disquisition on the psychological impulses behind the urge to accumulate, Collections of Nothing is a wonderfully frank and engaging look at one man’s detritus-fueled pathology... King emerges by book’s end a flawed but truly lovable eccentric--an ‘antimonk, carefully preserving and sustaining a vital darkness, heavy with various glues, through a forbidding period of enlightenment.’ May this darkness reign.”
—Henry Alford, New York Times Book Review
Here's the link to University of Chicago Press and the free eBook for January 2012. Enjoy.
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