The Plan: One Book, One Week

So, here's the idea:

I have a dissertation to write for my PhD in the Philosophy of Media and Communication at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland and in order to do this with any degree of thoroughness, there are a TON of books that I need to read to really get in deep and grapple with my topic. So, I'm going to read one book every week... for a year. At least.

And what, you might be wondering, is my topic? NOTHING. That's right... not "nothingness"... I'm talking about straight up unadulterated NOTHING. I'm sure I'll be explaining more about that as I get on with the reading, research, and writing.

Attempting to read at least one book a week, considering some of the heavy-duty works that I'm looking to dig in to (like Deleuze's A Thousand Plateaus, Sartre's Being and Nothingness, Jean Luc Nancy's Being Singular Plural, Badiou's Being and Event, Simone Weil's The Need for Roots, etc) is, I'm expecting, a formula for mild-to-severe insanity. That's kinda what I'm hoping for. Jamming all that exposition of ideas in my body and soul should break me... and that's exactly what I'm looking for: a breakthrough. A new thought. Nothing less. :-)

I've been warming up to this One Book/One Week pace already. In the past few weeks I've read Rollo May's The Courage to Create, Peter Brook's The Empty Space, and Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Okay, the Murakami book was more just for fun... and for some writer's inspiration. Clearly those books are more on the "light" and "skinny" side, especially when laid next to something like Kierkegaard's Either/Or or Nietzsche's The Will to Power. Obviously the big, bad bastards are gonna require that I pick a week when I don't have any Evangenitals or Cash'd Out shows and can really just give over to immobility, bed sores and voracious reading.

A VORACIOUS READER. It is something I have always wanted to be, and I'm really excited to have finally backed myself into a corner that gives me no other choice but to become that which I've always wanted to be.

Of course, there is ALWAYS a choice... :-)