SHAW, Mari
The Noble Art of Collecting #01 – Words, Books, and the Spaces They Inhabit

What was lost when the scrolls in the ancient library of Alexandria were destroyed? How did Catherine the Great's collecting change the way we think? How do Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com expand our appreciation of books as objects? Though the ways we communicate live and vary, history has been created, recorded, and preserved in writing. Words and the spaces that contain them are crucial to an empathetic understanding of our world. With examples of unexpected collectors and serendipitous outcomes, Mary Shaw investigates the obscure desires that shape art collecting and the public goodwill that results from it. [publisher’s note]

Published by Sternberg Press, 2017
Book Culture / Cultural Studies