“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. That is my belief.” (Franz Kafka in a letter to his friend Oskar Pollak, 27. January 1905)
Contributors to this anthology about the passion for books are (in alphabetical order):
Carl Abrahamsson, Avalon Brantley, B. Catling, Brendan Connell, Quentin S. Crisp, Richard Gavin, Martin Hayes, Colin Insole, Timothy J. Jarvis, Andrew Liles, Chris Mikul, Daniel Mills, Damian Murphy, Reggie Oliver, Thomas Phillips, Ray B. Russell, Michael Siefener, Charles Schneider, Thomas Stromsholt, Supervert, Mark Valentine, Paul Wallfisch, DP Watt, Ron Weighell, Jonathan Wood
Co-edited by Alcebiades Diniz Miguel,
Illustrations by Erika Seguín Colás.