El Hombre Que Comía Diccionarios

11/09/07 · On Bookselves

[...] Anyone afflicted with books and sharing a like propensity to wander in mental space may meditate on their own private principles of partition, composition, and ordering. Consider these.

PRINCIPLE #1

Any set of books can be partitioned according to the following [Russellian] principle:

—books in which one remembers having encountered at least once the word "book";
—books that left no memory of having contained the word "book".

[...]

PRINCIPLE #6

—books in which one encounters whales;
—books in which not even the shadow of a whale is to be found;
—books from which have disappeared, inexplicably, the whales one imagined there.

[...]

PRINCIPLE #10

—books given to you by someone you love, or have loved;
—books you talked about with someone you loved;
—books you wish you had talked about with someone you loved;
—books you image someone you loved or have loved could enjoy or could have enjoyed;
—books you would never have read if someone you love or have loved had not aroused your desire for them;
—books you wished or have wished to read in bed with someone you love or have loved without ever telling them so;
—books holding no relation of any sort to the love of anyone (but who remembers those?).