The Madman's Guide to Stamp Collecting

Why do we collect? Is it to rescue objects from oblivion? Is it a kind of desire - or even a kind of madness? In this mosaic of fiction, philosophy, sociology, biography and autobiography, virtuoso thinker Robert Irwin takes us on a wayward journey through the art of collecting, and his own intellectual passions.Drawing on the works of writers including Susan Sontag, Walter Benjamin, Iris Murdoch and Georges Perec, as well as a host of lesser-known geniuses, flaneurs, obsessives and eccentrics, Irwin explores everything from mysticism to nostalgia, classical antiquity to surrealism, dreams to death. We join Thomas De Quincey on a night mail coach, encounter the man who set out to acquire every stamp ever issued and enter the badlands of fakes and forgeries, all in the company of a uniquely brilliant mind.This is a book of wonders; of labyrinthine digressions, good humour and a delight in small things. It is a meditation on the stuff of life.