nr.82: Birthday Letters - Ted Hughes

Birthday Letters - Ted Hughes

This picture was taken in Amsterdam, 2004.

Ted Hughes was an English poet and children's writer.
Birthday Letters was first published in 1998.

The 2003 film Sylvia tells the story of Ted Hughes' relationship with the American poet Sylvia Plath.

"It was a visit from the goddess, the beauty
Who was poetry's sister - she had come
To tell poetry she was spoiling us.
Poetry listened, maybe, but we heard nothing
And poetry did not tell us. And we
Only did what poetry told us to do."

nr.81: The Poems of John Keats - John Keats

The Poems of John Keats - John Keats

This picture was taken in Mont Royal, Montreal 2009.

John Keats was an English poet. His first volume of poems was published in 1817.

The 2009 film Bright Star, written and directed by Jane Campion, is based on the last years of Keats' life.

"BRIGHT star! would I were steadfast as thou art -
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors -
No - yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever - or else swoon to death."

nr.80: Das Parfum - Patrick Süskind

Das Parfum - Patrick Süskind

This picture was taken in Barneys New York, NYC 2009. The dress is from Mary Katrantzou.

Patrick Süskind is a German writer. Das Parfum (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer) was first published in German in 1985.

The novel was adapted to cinema in 2006, and it was directed by Tom Tykwer.

"The rivers stank, the marketplaces stank, the churches stank, it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces.The peasant stank as did the priest, the apprentice as did his master’s wife, the whole of the aristocracy stank, even the king himself stank, stank like a rank lion, and the queen like an old goat, summer and winter."

re-cover nr.79

La Coquetterie - Catherine N'Diaye

This picture was taken in Amsterdam in 2009.

Catherine N'Diaye is a French-Senegalese writer. La Coquetterie ou La Passion du Détail (in English: Coquetterie or the Passion for Detail) was first published in 1987.

re-cover nr.78

The Rules of Attraction - Bret Easton Ellis

These are i-zone polaroids taken between 2003 and 2007 in Ílhavo and Amsterdam.

Bret Easton Ellis is an American author.

The Rules of Attraction was first published in 1987.

"Our lives are not all interconnected. That theory is a crock. Some people truly do not need to be here."

re-cover nr.77

Emotion Pictures - Wim Wenders

This photo was taken in Amsterdam in 2009.

Wim Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.

Emotion Pictures was first published in German (Emotion Pictures: Essays und Filmkritiken, 1968-1984), in 1986.

"I want to make personal films, not private films."

re-cover nr.76

The Image of the City - Kevin Lynch

This picture was taken in Helsinki in 2008.

Kevin Lynch was an American urban planner and author.
The Image of the City was first published in 1960.

"Where the journey contains such a series of distinct events, a reaching and passing of one sub-goal after another, the trip itself takes on meaning and becomes an experience in its own right."

"A street is perceived, in fact, as a thing which goes toward something. The path should support this perceptually by strong termini, and by a gradient or a directional differentiation, so that it is given a sense of progression, and the opposite directions are unlike."

re-cover nr.75

Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell

This picture was taken in Paris in 2008.

George Orwell is the pen name of the late English author Eric Arthur Blair.
Down and Out in Paris and London was first published in 1933.

"You thought it would be quite simple; it is extraordinarily complicated. You thought it would be terrible; it is merely squalid and boring. It is the peculiar lowness of poverty that you discover first; the shifts that it puts you to, the complicated meanness, the crust-wiping."

re-cover nr.74

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog - Dylan Thomas

This drawing was made in 2006, in Amsterdam.

Dylan Thomas was a Welsh poet, short-story writer and script writer for film and radio.
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog was first published in 1940. The title refers to James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

re-cover nr.73

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

This picture is a damaged polaroid.

Anthony Burgess is the pseudonym of Jonh Burgess Wilson, a late English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic.
A Clockwork Orange was first published in 1962.

Vinyl is an early adaptation of the novel by Andy Warhol in 1965, starring Gerard Malanga, Edie Sedgwick and Ondine, among others.

A Clockwork Orange has been also adapted for cinema by Stanley Kubrick in 1971, starring Malcolm McDowell.

"To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art."

"The possession of a book becomes a substitute for reading it."

re-cover nr.72

The male cross-dresser support group - Tama Janowitz

This picture was taken in Amsterdam, in 2003.

Tama Janowitz is an American novelist and short story writer. The male cross-dresser support group was first published in 1991.

"With publicity comes humiliation."

re-cover nr.71

The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

This picture was taken in Amsterdam in 2009.

Yukio Mishima was the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka, a Japanese author, poet and playwright.
The Decay of the Angel (Tennin Gosui, original Japanese title) was first published in 1970, and is the last of a cycle of four novels entitled The Sea of Fertility.

"It was a bright, quiet garden, without striking features. Like a rosary rubbed between the hands, the shrilling of cicadas held sway.
There was no other sound. The garden was empty. He had come, thought Honda, to a place that had no memories, nothing.
The noontide sun of summer flowed over the still garden."

re-cover nr.70

Brokeback Mountain - Annie Proulx

This photo was taken in Amsterdam in 2009.

Annie Proulx is an American journalist and author.
Brokeback Mountain was originally published in The New Yorker in 1997.

Brokeback Mountain was adapted to cinema in 2005, and directed by Ang Lee.

"I wish I knew how to quit you."

re-cover nr.69

Significant Others - Edited by Whitney Chadwick and Isabelle de Courtivron

This picture was taken in Amsterdam in 2008.

Whitney Chadwick is an American art historian and author. Isabelle de Courtivron is Professor of French Studies and Head of the Foreign Languages and Literatures department at MIT.

Significant Others was first published in 1993.

"Traditional biographies and monographs have typically described creativity as an extraordinary (usually male) individual’s solitary struggle for artistic self-expression. We decided instead, to explore the complexities of partnerships and collaborations, painful as well as enriching. We chose to focus on couples (whether different or same sex) because couples are endlessly fascinating in the diversity of their interactions."

re-cover nr.68

La Condition Postmoderne - Jean-François Lyotard

This photo was taken in Aveiro in 2008.

Jean-François Lyotard was a French philosopher.
La Condition postmoderne (The Postmodern Condition, in English) was first published in 1979.

"...is postmodernity the pastime of an old man who scrounges in the garbage-heap of finality looking for leftovers, who brandishes unconsciousnesses, lapses, limits, confines, goulags, parataxes, non-senses, or paradoxes, and who turns this into the glory of his novelty, into his promise of change?"

re-cover nr.67

On Love and Barley - Basho

This photo was taken in Amsterdam in 2009.

Matsuo Basho was a Japanese Haiku poet from the Edo period.
On Love and Barley was first published in English in 1985. The poems date from the second half of the 17th century.


"Departing spring -
birds cry
and in the eyes of fish, tears."

re-cover nr.66

Orlando - Virginia Woolf

This picture was taken in Amsterdam, 2009.

Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist.
Orlando was first published in 1928.

Orlando was adapted to cinema in 1992. The film was directed by Sally Potter, starring Tilda Swinton as Orlando.

"She had been a gloomy boy, in love with death, ... as boys are; and then she had been amorous and florid; and then she had been sprightly and satirical; and sometimes she had tried prose and sometimes she had tried drama. Yet through all these changes she had remained, she reflected, fundamentally the same. She had the same brooding meditative temper, the same love of animals and nature, the same passion for the country and the seasons."

re-cover nr.65

The Symposium - Plato

This picture was taken at the exhibition Endless Installation: A Ghost Story For Adults by PSWAR, at SMART Project Space in Amsterdam 2009.

Plato was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the Academy in Athens. The Symposium is a philosophical dialogue written around 385 BC.

Platonic Love is derived from a concept of love in Plato's Symposium .

"To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way."

"Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments."

"How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?"

"And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul."

re-cover nr.64

Intimacy - Hanif Kureishi

This photo was taken in Gaudí's Casa Milà, Barcelona 2005.

Hanif Kureishi is a Pakistani-English writer and filmmaker. Intimacy was first published in 1998.

Intimacy was adapted to cinema in 2001 by director Patrice Chéreau.

"It is the saddest night, for I am leaving and not coming back."

re-cover nr.63

The doors of perception - Aldous Huxley

This photo was taken in La maison Roche-Jeanneret / Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris, 2008. The house was designed by Le Corbusier, and built in 1923-24.

Aldous Huxley was an English writer. The doors of perception was first published in 1954. The title comes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.".

"It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'try to be a little kinder.'"

re-cover nr.62

Die bitteren tränen der Petra von Kant - R.W. Fassbinder

This picture (of a self-made collar) was taken in Amsterdam, 2003.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a German film director, writer and actor.
Die bitteren tränen der Petra von Kant (The bitter tears of Petra von Kant, English translation) is a theater play first performed in 1971, and first published in 1984.

Die Bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant is also a 1972 German film directed by Fassbinder, and based upon his play.

"I hope to build a house with my films. Some of them are the cellar, some are the walls, and some are the windows. But I hope in time there will be a house."

"I'd like to be for cinema what Shakespeare was for theatre, Marx for politics and Freud for psychology: someone after whom nothing is as it used to be."

"And I don't believe that melodramatic feelings are laughable - they should be taken absolutely seriously."

re-cover nr.61

Song of Myself - Walt Whitman

This picture was taken in Amsterdam in 2009.

Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. Song of Myself was first published in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass.

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes."

"Be curious, not judgmental."

"I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers."

"Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you."

"I have learned that to be with those I like is enough."

"Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?"

re-cover nr.60

La Société du Spectacle - Guy Debord

This photo was taken in Barcelona, in front of MACBA, in 2005.

Guy Debord was a French philosopher, writer, filmmaker, and founding member of the groups Lettrist International and Situationist International (SI).
La Société du Spectacle ( The Society of the Spectacle, English translation) was first published in French in 1967.

La Société du Spectacle is also the name of a film made by Guy Debord in 1973, based on his book.

"In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation."

"Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs."

re-cover nr.59

Livro de Mágoas - Florbela Espanca

This photo was taken in Amsterdam in 2008.

Florbela Espanca was a Portuguese poet. Livro de Mágoas (The Book of Sorrows, in English) was first published in 1919.

"To be a poet is to be taller, to be bigger
Than average men!
It is to bite as if you’re kissing!
It is to give alms, although you are a beggar,
Like the king of a realm where only pain is missing!

It is to have inside yourself a flaming star,
To have the condor's mighty claw and wing!

To be hungry and thirsty for the sky!

To condense the world into one lonely cry!"

re-cover nr.58

This is Modern Art - Matthew Collings

This picture was taken on the streets of Amsterdam in 2009.

Matthew Collings is a British art critic, broadcaster and author. This is Modern Art was first published in English in 2000.

This is Modern Art was also a six-part TV series, written and presented by Matthew Collings, and broadcast in 1998 on Channel 4.

"The art world is now a slave of mass culture. We have a sound-bite culture and so we have sound-bite art. You look at it, you get it - it's as immediate and as superficial as that."

"Artists don't often know much about writing... but they don't bray so much about writing as writers do about art."

re-cover nr.57

Women, Art, and Society - Whitney Chadwick

This picture was taken in Amsterdam in 2009.

Whitney Chadwick is an American art historian and author. Women, Art, and Society was first published in English in 1990.

"The subject of the nude in art brings together discourses of representation, morality, and female sexuality, but the persistent presentation of the nude female body as a sight of male viewing pleasure, a commodified image of exchange, and a fetishized defense against the fear of castration leaves little place for explorations of female subjectivity, knowledge, and experience."

re-cover nr.56

O Búzio de Cós - Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen

This black and white polaroid was taken in the Groninger Museum, Groningen 2002.

Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen was a Portuguese poet and writer.
O Búzio de Cós was first published, in Portuguese, in 1997.

In 1969 João César Monteiro made a short documentary, called Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, about the Portuguese poet.

"Poetry is my understanding with the universe, my way of relating to things, my participation in reality, my encounter with voices and images."

re-cover nr.55

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

These pictures were taken in Amsterdam in 2003.

Vladimir Nabokov was a Russian-American novelist, short story writer, and entomologist.
Lolita was written in English and first published in 1955.

Lolita was adapted to cinema in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick.

"All my stories are webs of style and none seems at first blush to contain much kinetic matter. For me style is matter."

"A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist."

"(...) our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness."

"The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea."

re-cover nr.54

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

This picture was taken in Amsterdam in 2009.

Leo Tolstoy was a Russian writer. Anna Karenina was first published in 1877.

In 1908, Tolstoy was photographed by the pioneer in colour photography Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky.

"All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

"He never chooses an opinion; he just wears whatever happens to be in style."

"If you want to be happy, be."

re-cover nr.53

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

This picture was taken in Amsterdam, 2009.

Oscar Wilde was an Irish playwright, poet and author.
The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published in 1891.

In the book, Dorian Gray attends a performance of Richard Wagner's opera, Tannhäuser, and is explicitly said to personally identify with the work.

In 1997 was released Wilde, a British biographical film, with Stephen Fry in the titular role.

"Oh how cruel for me to know, each breath will take beauty away."

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."

"The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you."

"Why was I born with such contemporaries?"

re-cover nr.52

De Stijl - Paul Overy

These pictures were taken in Amsterdam, 2009.

Paul Overy was a British art historian and critic.
De Stijl was first published as a short study of De Stijl (literally "the style") in 1969, and a longer study of the art movement was published in 1991.

Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondriaan, among others, were founders of De Stijl in 1917. Gerrit Rietveld became a member of the movement in 1919.

re-cover nr.51

Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo - Christiane F.

This photo was taken in Amsterdam, 2009.

We Children from the ZOO Station (English translation) is an autobiographical book based upon interviews with the German-born and teen drug addict Christiane F. The narrative of the book is in the first person, but was written by two German journalists (Kai Herrmann and Horst Rieck) functioning as ghostwriters.
The book was first published in Germany, in 1979.

In 1981, the story was made into a film directed by Uli Edel, in which Christiane worked as an advisor. David Bowie appears as himself in a concert, and also provided the music in the movie, released on the 1981 soundtrack album Christiane F..

re-cover nr.50

Les chants de Maldoror - Comte de Lautréamont

These pictures were taken in Amsterdam in 2002 (top) and 2008 (bottom).

Comte de Lautréamont was the pen name of Isidore Lucien Ducasse, an Urugaian-born French poet.
Les chants de Maldoror (Maldoror, in English) was first published in French, in 1869.

An edition of Les chants de Maldoror, published in 1934, was ilustrated by Salvador Dalí. René Magritte also ilustrated the book for a 1946 edition.

"I aim only to distinguish the contradiction between my mind and nothingness."

re-cover nr.49

Against Interpretation - Susan Sontag

This picture was taken in Amsterdam in 2007.

Susan Sontag was an American author, philosopher, literary theorist and political activist.
Against Interpretation was first published in 1966.

"Books are funny little portable pieces of thought."

"Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world - in order to set up a shadow world of 'meanings'."

"The painter constructs, the photographer discloses."

"(...)art changes morals."

re-cover nr.48

Thinking About Exhibitions - Edited by Reesa Greenberg, Bruce W. Ferguson, Sandy Nairne

This picture was taken in Amsterdam in 2009.

Reesa Greenberg is a Canadian writer and art critic, Bruce W. Ferguson is a Canadian independent curator and art critic, and Sandy Nairne is a British museum director and writer.

Thinking About Exhibitions was simultaneously published in Canada, USA and UK in 1996.

"The conception of the exhibition will be philosophical."

"The visitor is an eye. (...) The visitor is a body in movement."

re-cover nr.47

Bonjour Tristesse - Françoise Sagan

This picture was taken in Paris in May 2008.
It's a frame of a Dior outdoor.

Françoise Sagan was a French playwright, novelist and screenwriter.
Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness, in English) was first published in 1954, in French. The title is derived from a poem by Paul Éluard.

In 1958 Bonjour Tristesse was adapted to cinema.

The words Bonjour Tristesse were also written on the façade of Siza Vieira's apartment building in Kreuzberg, Berlin, giving it its name.

"Art must take reality by surprise."

"Life is amorphous, literature is formal."

"The one thing I regret is that I will never have time to read all the books I want to read."

re-cover nr.46

Babyji - Abha Dawesar

This picture was taken in Amsterdam, 2009.

Abha Dawesar is an Indian novelist.
Babyji was first published (in English) in 2005.

"I want to collapse my wave function into you."

re-cover nr.45

Less than zero - Bret Easton Ellis

This picture was taken in Amsterdam, 2009.

Bret Easton Ellis is an American author.
Less than zero, titled after the Elvis Costello song of the same name, was first published in 1985.

Less than zero was adapted into a movie in 1987.

"She laughs and looks out the window and I think for a minute that she's going to start to cry. I'm standing by the door and I look over at the Elvis Costello poster, at his eyes, watching her, watching us, and I try to get her away from it, so I tell her to come over here, sit down, and she thinks I want to hug her or something and she comes over to me and puts her arms around my back and says something like 'I think we've all lost some sort of feeling.'"

re-cover nr.44

On the Origin of Species - Charles Darwin

These pictures were taken in Paris in 2008.

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist, biologist and author.
On the Origin of Species was first published in England in 1859.

"Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits."

"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars."

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

P.S. Luis, esta é para ti!

re-cover nr.43

Crash - J. G. Ballard

This picture was taken in Paris, 2008.

J. G. Ballard is a British novelist and short story writer.
Crash was first published in 1973.

The novel was made into a movie of the same name in 1996 by David Cronenberg.

"After having...been constantly bombarded by road-safety propaganda, it was almost a relief to find myself in a real accident."

re-cover nr.42

Opera Aperta - Umberto Eco

This is a picture taken in the installation "Infinity Mirror Room - Phalli's Field" (1965 - Yayoi Kusama), at the "Mirrored Years" exhibition, Rotterdam 2008.

Umberto Eco is an Italian medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, literary critic and novelist.
Opera Aperta was first published in 1962, and translated to English in 1989 as The Open Work.

"I would define the poetic effect as the capacity that a text displays for continuing to generate different readings, without ever being completely consumed."

"The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently."

re-cover nr.41

The Interpretation of Dreams - Sigmund Freud

This picture was taken in Amsterdam in 2006.

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian psychiatrist.
The Interpretation of Dreams (Die Traumdeutung - original German title) was first published in German in 1899.

In 1962 was release Freud the Secret Passion, an American film based on the life of Freud. Jean-Paul Sartre was involved in the script writing.

In 1945 Alfred Hitchcock directed Spellbound, a psychological thriller that highlights psychoanalysis merits. Salvador Dali designed the dream sequence.

Edward Bernays, Freud’s nephew, was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle on the subconscious.

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

re-cover nr.40

Ethica Ordine Geometrico demonstrata - Spinoza

This picture was taken in Amsterdam in 2008.

Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Philosopher of Portuguese Jewish origin.
Ethica (Ethics demonstrated in geometrical order - English translation) was written in Latin and published posthumously in 1677.

"Happiness is a virtue, not its reward."

"I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion."

re-cover nr.39

Nana - Emile Zola

This is an i-zone polaroid taken in Amsterdam in 2003.

Emile Zola was a French writer.
Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume series Les Rougons-Macquart, and was first published as a book in 1880, in French.

"In my view you cannot claim to have seen something until you have photographed it."

"Perfection is such a nuisance that I often regret having cured myself of using tobacco."

"I am an artist... I am here to live out loud."

"If I cannot overwhelm with my quality, I will overwhelm with my quantity."

re-cover nr.38

On the road - Jack Kerouac

This photo was taken in a subway station in Brussels, in 2007.

Jack Kerouac was an American author, poet and painter.

On the road is a largely autobiographical novel written in 1951 and first published in 1957.

"It is not my fault that certain so-called bohemian elements have found in my writings something to hang their peculiar beatnik theories on."

re-cover nr.37

On the road - Jack Kerouac

This picture was taken in the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, in 2008.

Jack Kerouac was an American author, poet and painter.
On the road is an autobiographical novel written in 1951 and first published in 1957.

"We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, move."

"What’s in store for me in the direction I don’t take?"

re-cover nr.36

L'Étranger - Albert Camus

This picture was taken in Paris, in the Maison Rouge, in 2008.

Albert Camus was an Algerian-born French author, philosopher and journalist who won the Nobel prize in 1957.
L'Étranger (translated to English as The Stranger) was first published in France in 1942.

"Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face."

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."

"(...) One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason."

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide."

re-cover nr.35

The Possibility of an Island - Michel Houellebecq

This picture was taken from a plane, somewhere in Europe, 2004.

Michel Houellebecq is a French novelist.
The Possibility of an Island was published originally in French (La possibilité d'une île) in 2005.

A film based on the novel La Possibilité d'une île premiered in France on September 2008. The film was directed by Houellebecq himself.

"We no longer really had the opportunity to go out, nor the taste for it. And then there are lots of things to do, formalities, steps to take...the shopping, the laundry. We need more and more time to look after our health, as well, simply to maintain the body in more or less working order. After a certain age, life becomes administrative - more than anything."

"And love, where all is easy,
Where all is given in the instant;
There exists in the midst of time
The possibility of an island."

P.S. Gui, esta é para ti!

re-cover nr.34

Sex, Art, and American Culture - Camille Paglia

This picture was taken in Amsterdam, in November 2008. The drawing was made in 2004.

Camille Paglia is an American author, teacher, social critic and dissident feminist.
Sex, Art, and American Culture was first published in 1992.

"Pornography is human imagination in tense theatrical action; (...)."

re-cover nr.33

Neuromancer - William Gibson

This picture was taken in Amsterdam, 2008.

William Gibson is an American-Canadian science-fiction writer.

Neuromancer is a sci-fi novel, first published in 1984. The cover art of the first edition was made by James Warhola, nephew of Andy Warhol.

Gibson has often collaborated with performance artists such as theatre group La Fura dels Baus.

"Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding..."

re-cover nr.32

La Maladie de la Mort - Marguerite Duras

This picture was taken in Berlin in 2005.

Marguerite Duras was a French writer and film director.

La Maladie de la Mort (in English: The Malady of Death) was first published in 1982.

"A writer is a foreign country."

re-cover nr.31

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

This is a damaged polaroid, taken in Praia da Barra in 1999.

Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer.
The Bell Jar is a semi-autobiographical novel, and it was first published in 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. The novel was published under Plath's name for the first time in 1966.

The 2003 film Sylvia tells the story of Plath's relationship with the English poet Ted Hughes.

"I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full."

re-cover nr.30

The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka

This picture was shot in Amsterdam, 2006.

Franz Kafka was a Czech writer, and The Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung, original German title) was first published in 1915.

"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

"Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency."

re-cover nr.29

Der Prozess - Franz Kafka

This photo was taken in the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, 2008.

Franz Kafka was a Czech writer, and Der Prozess (The Trial, in English) was first published in German in 1925.

"Every revolution evaporates and leaves only the slime of a new bureaucracy."

"The whole world is growing smaller every day."

re-cover nr.28

Casual Sex and other verse - Murray Lachlan Young

This picture was taken in Amsterdam in 2008.

Murray L. Young is a British poet and performance artist.
Casual Sex and other verse was first published in 1997. In the same year was also released M. L. Young's first CD of music-backed verse, Vice & Verse:

- I'm Being Followed by The Rolling Stones
- MTV Super Model
- The Pros en Cons of Superstardom
- Just Another Night (at the seaside)

re-cover nr.27

Oedipus Rex - Sophocles

This photo was taken in Paris, May 2008.

Sophocles was an ancient Greek tragedian. Oedipus the King (English translation) was first performed circa 429 BC.

Among other adaptations of the play, Igor Stravinsky composed an opera-oratorio for which Jean Cocteau wrote the libretto (1927), and Pier Paolo Pasolini made a film, Edipo re, in 1967.

In Freud's psychoanalysis, the Oedipus complex is also named after the Greek mythical character.

"Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud, wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud."

re-cover nr.26

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

This picture was taken in Amsterdam, 2008.

Lewis Carroll (pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was an English author, mathematician, logician and photographer.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was first published in 1865 and it was inspired by Alice Pleasance Liddell.

"Alice: And how many hours a day did you do lessons?

The Mock Turtle: Ten hours the first day, nine the next, and so on.

Alice: What a curious plan!

The Gryphon: That's the reason they're called lessons, because they lessen from day to day."

re-cover nr.25

Death in Venice - Thomas Mann

Picture taken in Amsterdam in 2008.

Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic and essayist.

Der Tod in Venedig (original German title), was first published in 1912 and it wasn't translated to English (Death in Venice) before 1925.

Mann's novella was adapted to

cinema in 1971 by Luchino Visconti. It intruduced Björn Andrésen as Tadzio. The feminist writer Germaine Greer used a photograph of him on the cover of her book The Beautiful Boy (2003).

"For you know that we poets cannot walk the way of beauty without Eros as our companion and guide. We may be heroic after our fashion, disciplined warriors of our craft, yet are we all the women, for we exult in passion, and love is still our desire, our craving and our shame. And from this you will perceive that we poets can be neither wise nor worthy citizens."

re-cover nr.24

O Medo - Al Berto

Drawing made in Amsterdam in 2006.

Al Berto was the pseudonym used by the Portuguese poet Alberto Raposo Pidwell Tavares.

O Medo (meaning Fear) is a collection of poems written between 1974 and 1997, published in 1998. The first edition (1987) comprises the poems only until 1986.

"o início da vida esteve, talvez, na harmonia de uma gota de água que fecunda um grão de areia. jamais saberemos como nasceu o desejo do poema."

"le début de la vie a été, peut-être, dans l'harmonie d'une goutte d'eau qui féconde un grain de sable. on ne saura jamais comment est né le désir du poème."

re-cover nr.23

The Illuminati Papers - Robert Anton Wilson

This photo was taken in Helsinki in May 2008.

Robert Anton Wilson (aka RAW) was an American novelist, essayist, philosopher, psychonaut, futurologist and libertarian.
The Illuminati Papers is a collection of essays, first published in 1980.

In the 90's RAW starred in two films from the Portuguese film maker Edgar Pêra: Os Túneis da Realidade (aka Who Is the Master Who Makes the Grass Green? - 1996) and Manual de Evasão (1994).

"I don't believe anything I write or say. I regard belief as a form of brain damage, the death of intelligence, the fracture of creativity, the atrophy of imagination. I have opinions but no Belief System (B.S.)"

"I think I got off on the wrong planet. Beam me up Scotty, there's no rational life here."

re-cover nr.22

Point and Line to Plane - Wassily Kandinsky


This picture was taken in Amsterdam, November 2008.


Kandinsky was a Russian painter, printmaker and art theorist. He taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933. There, the development of his work, particularly on point and different forms of lines, lead to the publication, in 1926, of his second major theoretical book Point and Line to Plane (Punkt und Linie zu Flashe - original German title).

re-cover nr.21

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

This is a photo of Casa de Serralves, taken in Porto in 2006.

Scott Fitzgerald was an American writer of novels and short stories. The Great Gatsby was first published in 1925.
The Great Gatsby was adapted to cinema several times being the 1974 film the most famous version.

"An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards."

re-cover nr.20

South of No North - Charles Bukowski

This picture was taken in Amsterdam, November 2008.

Bukowski was a German American poet, novelist and short story writer.
This book is a collection of short stories, first published in 1973 as South of No North: Stories of the Buried Life.

Some of Bukowski's writings were adapted to the cinema. Among those Barfly, from 1987, for which he wrote the screenplay, and Factotum, 2005, adapted from his novel of the same name.

"To do things, to be part of family picnics, Christmas, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Mother's Day . . . was a man born just to endure those things and then die? I would rather be a dishwasher, return alone to a tiny room and drink myself to sleep."

re-cover nr.19

Townscape - Gordon Cullen

This picture was taken in Amsterdam in November 2008. It's a reflection on an H&M outdoor featuring their latest collaboration with Comme des Garçons.


Gordon Cullen was an English architect and urban designer. Townscape, published in 1971, is a re-edition of The Concise Townscape, originally published in 1961.

"One contribution to modern townscape, startlingly conspicuous everywhere you look, but almost entirely ignored by the town planner, is street publicity. (...). And yet of all things, this is the most characteristic, and, potentially, the most valuable, contribution of the 20Th century to urban scenery."

re-cover nr.18

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

This polaroid was shot in Aveiro in 1997.

Truman Capote was an American writer. In Cold Blood, which Capote labeled a "non-fiction novel", was first published in 1966.

Capote's experiences in writing the story have been adapted into two films: Capote (2005) and Infamous (2006).

"All literature is gossip."

"Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor."

"Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself."

re-cover nr.17

Absolute Beginners - Colin MacInnes

This photo was taken in Amsterdam in 2006.

Colin MacInnes was an English novelist. Absolute Beginners, written and set in 1958 London, England, was first published in 1959.
The novel was adapted into a musical film. David Bowie performed the title song and appeared as the advertising man Vendice Partners.

"I've nothing much to offer
There's nothing much to take
I'm an absolute beginner
And I'm absolutely sane
As long as we're together
The rest can go to hell
I absolutely love you
But we're absolute beginners
With eyes completely open
But nervous all the same"

re-cover nr.16

Das Kapital - Karl Marx

This picture was taken in the Jardins des Tuileries, Paris, May 2008.

Karl Marx was a German philosopher, political economist, historian, sociologist, humanist, political theorist and revolutionary.
Das Kapital (Capital, in the English translation) was first published in 1867 and it was partly edited by Friedrich Engels.

"Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex."

"Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time."

re-cover nr.15

Twee Vrouwen - Harry Mulisch

These pictures were taken in Amsterdam, 2003.

Harry Mulisch is a Dutch author. He has written novels, plays, essays, poems, and philosophical reflections.
Two Women (English title) was first published in 1975, and in 1979 was adapted to the cinema under the title Twice a Woman, directed by George Sluizer.

re-cover nr.14

Os Lusíadas - Luís Vaz de Camões

This is a picture of Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show (1964) by Yayoi Kusama. It was taken in September 2008, at the "Mirrored Years" exhibition in Rotterdam.

The Lusiads (English translation) is a Portuguese epic poem by Camões, mainly focussed on a fantastical interpretation of the Portuguese voyages of discovery during the 15th and 16th centuries. It was first printed in 1572.

P.S. Zeco, esta é para ti!

re-cover nr.13

Le Deuxième Sexe - Simone de Beauvoir

This is a photo taken in Amsterdam in 2002.

Simone de Beauvoir was a French author and philosopher. The Second Sex (English title) was first published in its original version in 1949.

"Art is an attempt to integrate evil."

"However gifted an individual is at the outset, if his or her talents cannot be developed because of his or her social condition, because of the surrounding circumstances, these talents will be still-born."

re-cover nr.12

Ästhetische Theorie - Theodor W. Adorno

This picture was taken in Parc de la Villette, Paris, May 2008.

Adorno was a German-born international sociologist, philosopher, musicologist, and composer.
Aesthetic Theory (English title) was first published in German in 1970.

"The dual nature of artworks as autonomous structures and social phenomena results in oscillating criteria: Autonomous works provoke the verdict of social indifference and ultimately of being criminally reactionary; conversely, works that make socially univocal discursive judgments thereby negate art as well as themselves."

re-cover nr.11

Bemerkungen Über die Farben - Ludwig Wittgenstein

This picture was taken in Museu Serralves, Porto, in the Summer of 2005. The Contemporary Art Museum was designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira in 1997.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher. Remarks on Colour (English translation) was first published in 1977 by G.E.M. Anscombe.
In 1993 the English director, stage designer, artist and writer Derek Jarman made Wittgenstein, a film inspired on the life of the philosopher.

re-cover nr.10

Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

This picture was taken in Palais de Tokyo, Paris, May 2008.

Brideshead Revisited is a novel by the English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. The book was adapted to a BBC TV series of the same name in 1981.

re-cover nr.9

Claudine à Paris - Colette

This photo was taken outside Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris , May 2008.

Colette was the pen name of the French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. Her first books, the Claudine series, were first published, between 1900 and 1903, under the pen name of her husband "Willy".

One of the trendiest shops in Paris is named after Colette.

re-cover nr.8

Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

These pictures were taken in Amsterdam in September 2008.

The play was orininally written in French (En attendant Godot), in 1948/49, by the Irish writer, dramatist and poet Samuel Beckett. It was premiered in 1953.

"We are all born mad. Some remain so."

re-cover nr.7

Kongres Futurologiczny - Stanislaw Lem

This photo was taken in Paris, in May 2008, in the congress room of the French Communist Party Headquarters, designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in 1972.

The Futurological Congress (English translation), is a sci-fi novel by the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, first published in its original version in 1971.

re-cover nr.6

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick

Picture taken in the GWL-terrein in Amsterdam, winter of 2006.

Philip K. Dick was an American science fiction novelist and short story writer. The most famous film adaptation of this sci-fi novel, first published in 1968, is Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982).

re-cover nr.5

Les Fleurs du Mal - Charles Baudelaire

This picture is actually an old postcard bought at the Waterloo flee market in Amsterdam, back in 2003.

Baudelaire was a French poet, critic and acclaimed translator. These poems were first published in France in 1857. The English title is The Flowers of Evil.

"Personally, I think that the unique and supreme delight lies in the certainty of doing 'evil' - and men and women know from birth that all pleasure lies in evil".

re-cover nr.4

Une Saison en Enfer - Jean-Arthur Rimbaud

This is a slide taken in Zuerich in November 1998.

Jean-Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet.
We "re-covered" the original French edition, published in 1873. The first english translation (A season in Hell) didn't appear before 1966.

"It has been found again! What? Eternity.
It is the sea mingled with the sun."

re-cover nr.3

Sexual Politics - Kate Millett

We took this picture at Yayoi Kusama's exhibition "Mirrored Years" at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam, September 2008. The photo is a detail of "Red Stripes" from 1965.

Kate Millett is an American feminist writer and activist and Sexual Politics is a classic feminist text first published in 1970.

re-cover nr.2

Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

This photo (of a Róisín Murphy's music video - Movie Star) was taken from the TV screen, in Amsterdam 2008.

Madame Bovary is a novel by the late French writer Gustave Flaubert, who was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors when it was first serialized in La Revue de Paris between October and December of 1856. It was first published in book form in France in 1857.

re-cover nr.1

No One Belongs Here More Than You - Miranda July

This photo was taken in the lobby of the Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam, September 2008.

Miranda July is an American filmmaker, performing artist and writer. Her collection of stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You, was published in 2007. In 2002 July created the participatory website, learningtoloveyoumore, with artist Harrell Fletcher. She also wrote, directed and starred in her first feature-length film, Me and You and Everyone We Know in 2005.