The Madman’s Guide to Stamp Collecting by Robert Irwin (.ePUB)
File Size: 1.4 MB
The Madman’s Guide to Stamp Collecting by Robert Irwin
Requirements: .ePUB reader, 1.4 Mb
Overview: Why do we collect? Is it to rescue objects from oblivion? Is it a kind of desire—or even a kind of madness?
Robert Irwin—novelist, historian, translator, collector—was a true original; a virtuoso thinker who combined encyclopaedic knowledge with boundless curiosity. In this ‘mosaic of fiction, philosophy, sociology, biography and autobiography’ he takes us on a wayward journey through the art of collecting, and his own intellectual passions.
Drawing on a treasure-trove of literary references from writers including Susan Sontag, Walter Benjamin, Iris Murdoch and Georges Perec, as well as a host of lesser-known geniuses, flaneurs, obsessives and eccentrics, Irwin explores everything from mysticism to nostalgia, psychology to propaganda, classical antiquity to surrealism, dreams to death. We join Thomas De Quincey on a night mail coach, encounter the man who set out to acquire every stamp ever issued, enter the shadowlands of long-vanished kingdoms and the badlands of fakes and forgeries, all in the company of a uniquely brilliant mind.
This is a one-of-a-kind book of wonders; of labyrinthine digressions, good humour and a ‘delight in small things’. It is a satisfying and unforgettable meditation on the stuff of life.
Genre: Non-Fiction > General
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