- Paperback: 84 pages
- Publisher: Oxford University Press (Jun 29 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0823230376
- ISBN-13: 978-0823230372
- Product Dimensions: 18.5 x 12.4 x 0.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 91 g
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#323,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #28 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Criticism & Theory > Deconstructionism
- #50 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Books & Reading > Booksellers & Bookselling
- #86 in Books > Nonfiction > Philosophy > Movements > Deconstruction
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
Opening this little 'Aleph' of a book is a most extraordinary adventure; the universe and how we know it unfolds in startling profundity. I thought I knew what a book was until I read this, but Nancy has set me off again in search of the million things a book can be.-Lewis Buzbee
More than an loge to books and bookstores, or to the book or the bookstore, Jean-Luc Nancy's evocative essay reminds us of the crucial link between reading and politics that keeps open the possibility of enlightenment. Nancy touches suggestively on the book as what Stphane Mallarm called 'a spiritual instrument,' illuminating the epochal philosophical and religious developments for which books have been the indispensable material support. Nancy's book contains the philosophical weight and literary flair that has made him one of the most important thinkers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As David Wills helpfully points out in the preface to his excellent translation, Nancy's thoughts on books and bookstores extend his reflection on the possibility of the truly singular plurality of community.-Kevin McLaughlin
Delights the mind with its turns of phrase, its creative reinterpretations of ordinary concepts, and its remarkable rigor.-Sander van Maas
Product Description
This engaging book by one of France's leading contemporary philosophers celebrates the particular communication of thoughts that takes place by means of the business of writing, producing, and selling books. Nancy's reflection is born out of his relation to the bookstore, in the first place his neighborhood one, but beyond that any such "perfumery, rotisserie, patisserie," as he calls them, dispensaries "of scents and flavors through which something like a fragrance or bouquet of the bookis divined, presumed, sensed." On the Commerce of Thinking is a brilliant semiology of the cultural practice that begins with the unique character of the writer's voice and culminates in a customer's crossing the bookstore threshold, package under arm, on the way home to a comfortable chair. It's also an understated yet persuasive plea in favor of an endangered species.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
au contraire, Aug 28 2011
By o dubhthaigh - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: On the Commerce of Thinking: Of Books and Bookstores (Paperback)
O cantankerous, for the other review. This is a charming and provocative little essay on what it is that is a book, its impact on thinking and what commerce might mean to it. It is a bit ahead of its time as it pre-dates ereaders, but, alas for my colleague, it was never meant to be about a bookstore or the mundane elemants of merchandising. Not to worry, dear fellow, surely Walmart will come up with an e-reader for you.
3 of 15 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Very disappointing, Nov 21 2009
By Paul A. Ranogajec "p.r." - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: On the Commerce of Thinking: Of Books and Bookstores (Paperback)
Indecipherable. If you can wade through French critical theory texts, then *maybe* you will appreciate this book. It has little to say, however, about the actual mechanisms of bookselling and bookstores, or about, as the title promises, the "commerce of thinking." It is written in the most convoluted language imaginable, not helped by what is surely a poor translation from the French. A big disappointment.
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