The Libraries of Thought & Imagination: An Anthology of Books and Bookshelves (Pocketbooks

by Alec Finlay (Editor)

The Libraries of Thought and Imagination celebrates books, libraries and biblophilia. Artists and writers were invited to select and write about an imaginary bookshelf and consider the different characteristics of private and public libraries. Contributions range from the way individual books are presented, catalogued and stored, to imaginative, explorations of the library as a historical and philosophical model, a reification of thought. Written and photographic essays discuss a number of important library projects and book interventions by internationally renowned artists.

Genres: Books About Books

208 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2001

About the author

Alec Finlay (b. 1960) is a Scottish poet and artist whose work crosses over a range of media and forms. In 2020 he received a Cholmondeley Award for services to poetry. His I remember: Scotland's Covid Memorial was completed in 2022. Publications include I remember (2022), description (2022), a far off land (2018), and gathering (2018). A collected shorter poems, play my game, was published by Stewed Rhubarb in 2023.

Reviews

[olivier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anthologies are hard to like/love/enjoy, yet somehow these selections of very intense love notes to books, shelvings, personal librairies in the realm of an art-life practice worked really well for me, but I’m also just a slut for most books on books. Good stories, good art, good literary theory.

For sure this book also deserves this kind of review: in the past three years, I tried to buy this book twice online and both times we failed to be in each other’s arms: once they couldn’t find the book, second time they realised the book is in bad condition. To quote from p62, ‘the more important a book becomes the more you realise you don’t own it at all: you’re looking after it.’

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I shouldn't have bought this without going to look at the library's copy. It's largely a concept-piece, and even its introductory essay doesn't really go beyond the banal observation that "libraries have symbolic resonance." Some of the essays raise slightly more provocative points about the relationship between books inner and outer aspects, but overall I found the pictures and art contained within the volume more interesting than any of the prose itself.