S1E3: Why do people treat their books so differently? Some people like to keep their books in near-mint condition, handling them with metaphorical gloves on and making sure that there is not a single scratch to be found on their cover. Other people, like Sophus, want to dogear the corners, doodle in the margins, and crack the spine of every book they read. In this episode, Sophus traces the origins of this book-lover battle.
Hosted and written by Sophus Helle. Sound editing by Simone Nystrup-Larsen. Edited by Andreas Lindinger Saxild.
Listen on Apple Podcasts.
Hosted and written by Sophus Helle. Sound editing by Simone Nystrup-Larsen. Edited by Andreas Lindinger Saxild.
Further notes
The essay by Walter Benjamin that I draw on is called “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (“Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit,” 1935). You can read the full essay here.
I mention a number of books in this episode:
- Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (Harcourt, 1983, originally published in 1980), a murder mystery set among Medieval monks,
- Philip Pullman, Northern Lights (or The Golden Compass, Scholastic Point, 1995), my teenage self’s favorite interdimensional journey to kill God,
- Michael Allin, Zarafa: A Giraffe’s True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris (Random House, 1998), from which I lifted the dubious anecdote about Napoleon trekking through the desert, and
- The Letters of Abelard and Heloise (find them e.g. in the translation by Betta Radice for Penguin Classics, 2004), the weird and wonderful correspondence between a Medieval philosopher and the teacher with whom she had an affair, and who was also a Medieval philosopher.
The episode is based on an essay that I wrote for the Danish newspaper Weekendavisen.
Finally, enjoy the meme, courtesy of Writers HQ.
