Description

Nearly everyone collects something, even those who don't think of themselves as collectors. William Davies King, on the other hand, has devoted decades to collecting nothing - and a lot of it. With "Collections of Nothing", he takes a hard look at this habitual hoarding to see what truths it can reveal about the impulse to accumulate. Part memoir, part reflection on the mania of acquisition, "Collections of Nothing" begins with the stamp collection that King was given as a boy. In the following years, rather than rarity or pedigree, he found himself searching out the lowly and the lost, the cast-off and the undesired: objects that, merely by gathering and retaining them, he could imbue with meaning, even value. As he relates the story of his burgeoning collections, King also offers a fascinating meditation on the human urge to collect. This wry, funny, even touching appreciation and dissection of the collector's art as seen through the life of a most unusual specimen will appeal to anyone who has ever felt the unappeasable power of that acquisitive fever.

Collections of Nothing

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Paperback / softback by William Davies King

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Nearly everyone collects something, even those who don't think of themselves as collectors. William Davies King, on the other hand,... Read more

    Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
    Publication Date: 01/10/2009
    ISBN13: 9780226437019, 978-0226437019
    ISBN10: 0226437019

    Number of Pages: 176

    Non Fiction , Biography

    Description

    Nearly everyone collects something, even those who don't think of themselves as collectors. William Davies King, on the other hand, has devoted decades to collecting nothing - and a lot of it. With "Collections of Nothing", he takes a hard look at this habitual hoarding to see what truths it can reveal about the impulse to accumulate. Part memoir, part reflection on the mania of acquisition, "Collections of Nothing" begins with the stamp collection that King was given as a boy. In the following years, rather than rarity or pedigree, he found himself searching out the lowly and the lost, the cast-off and the undesired: objects that, merely by gathering and retaining them, he could imbue with meaning, even value. As he relates the story of his burgeoning collections, King also offers a fascinating meditation on the human urge to collect. This wry, funny, even touching appreciation and dissection of the collector's art as seen through the life of a most unusual specimen will appeal to anyone who has ever felt the unappeasable power of that acquisitive fever.

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