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Collections of Nothing
Nearly everyone collects something, even those who don’t think of themselves as collectors. William Davies King, on the other hand, has devoted decades to collecting nothing—and a lot of it. With Collections of Nothing, he takes a hard look at this habitual hoarding to see what truths it can reveal about the impulse to accumulate.
Part memoir, part reflection on the mania of acquisition, Collections of Nothing begins with the stamp collection that King was given as a boy. In the following years, rather than rarity or pedigree, he found himself searching out the lowly and the lost, the cast-off and the objects that, merely by gathering and retaining them, he could imbue with meaning, even value. As he relates the story of his burgeoning collections, King also offers a fascinating meditation on the human urge to collect. This wry, funny, even touching appreciation and dissection of the collector’s art as seen through the life of a most unusual specimen will appeal to anyone who has ever felt the unappeasable power of that acquisitive fever.
"What makes this book, bred of a midlife crisis, extraordinary is the way King weaves his autobiography into the account of his collection, deftly demonstrating that the two stories are essentially one. . . . His hard-won self-awareness gives his disclosures an intensity that will likely resonate with all readers, even those whose collections of nothing contain nothing at all."—New Yorker
"King's extraordinary book is a memoir served up on the backs of all things he collects. . . . His story starts out sounding odd and singular—who is this guy?—but by the end, you recognize yourself in a lot of what he does."—Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune
Part memoir, part reflection on the mania of acquisition, Collections of Nothing begins with the stamp collection that King was given as a boy. In the following years, rather than rarity or pedigree, he found himself searching out the lowly and the lost, the cast-off and the objects that, merely by gathering and retaining them, he could imbue with meaning, even value. As he relates the story of his burgeoning collections, King also offers a fascinating meditation on the human urge to collect. This wry, funny, even touching appreciation and dissection of the collector’s art as seen through the life of a most unusual specimen will appeal to anyone who has ever felt the unappeasable power of that acquisitive fever.
"What makes this book, bred of a midlife crisis, extraordinary is the way King weaves his autobiography into the account of his collection, deftly demonstrating that the two stories are essentially one. . . . His hard-won self-awareness gives his disclosures an intensity that will likely resonate with all readers, even those whose collections of nothing contain nothing at all."—New Yorker
"King's extraordinary book is a memoir served up on the backs of all things he collects. . . . His story starts out sounding odd and singular—who is this guy?—but by the end, you recognize yourself in a lot of what he does."—Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune
176 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2008
13 people are currently reading
245 people want to read
About the author
William Davies King
11 booksProfessor of theater at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
September 30, 2008
Oh god, you don't know how it pains me to give this book two stars. The cover is beautiful and the subject matter fascinating. I know that William Davies King is a kindred spirit, a fellow collector-obsessive, but that doesn't change the fact that I feel, after finishing this book, like someone just threw up on me.
If you want to write a book about your weird habits, so that I can admire and respect them, please do. If you want to write a book and talk circularly and melodramatically about how your parents didn't love you enough and how you collect objects because they will never leave you, please DON'T. You can even call me and talk to me about it on the phone if you want. But if you're going to write a book, at least edit it? He's always complaining about how his collecting is self-indulgent, but I would way rather look at his collection of dictionary illustrations or tuna can labels (in fact, I really do want to see them) than read this. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I really am.
William, you seem like a super guy. It's just that your genius is in collage art, not memoir.
If you want to write a book about your weird habits, so that I can admire and respect them, please do. If you want to write a book and talk circularly and melodramatically about how your parents didn't love you enough and how you collect objects because they will never leave you, please DON'T. You can even call me and talk to me about it on the phone if you want. But if you're going to write a book, at least edit it? He's always complaining about how his collecting is self-indulgent, but I would way rather look at his collection of dictionary illustrations or tuna can labels (in fact, I really do want to see them) than read this. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I really am.
William, you seem like a super guy. It's just that your genius is in collage art, not memoir.
February 2, 2010
In some ways this memoir strikes me as the most naked kind of confessional, as if the author, instead of being a collector, were a professional masturbator, or someone who wove carpets from the hair of all the women he dated. It is a memoir steeped in shame and pathology, yet also normalness, since the type of collecting and acquiring done here is both an attempt to fill emptiness and compensate for emotional wounds, and a path to self-definition - "a way of sketching the world and my place in it." This is not hoarding in the strictest sense: King doesn't live among canyons of teetering newspapers and garbage, but curates his collections with obsessive care; over the past 25 years he has filled 83 binders with food and consumer products labels, and this is just one of his many collections. Other smaller ones are teabag tags, expired credit cards and library cards, illustrations cut from old dictionaries and pasted onto paper. The book's cover shows a page from his binder containing security envelope linings. He is acutely aware of the low utility and limited aesthetic appeal of his collections, of the lost hours spent accumulating them ("life marches on, while collectors trail behind, carrying a shovel and a sack"). Yet he also recognizes their congruity with art - the way art and collecting both share elements of curation, of synthesis, of animating found objects (Joseph Cornell's boxes were a source of inspiration for him as a youth).
It also feels like a naked confessional, as we learn late in the book, because King's health insurance plan has stopped paying for his therapy sessions. He has discontinued his retail therapy and the book is his "homemade" continuation of it (though not necessarily the end of his collecting). I felt equal measures of empathy and horror reading it, which was well-expressed by Henry Alford's review in the New York Times: "I wanted, by turns, to breast-feed and strangle him."
King, a professor of theater at UC Santa Barbara, writes poetically. I enjoyed this charmingly cruel bit of name-dropping from his days as a student at the Yale School of Drama:
"...I was turned to dust by a simpering, snorting aerobics instructor, an iota named John Guare. He always called himself "the world's oldest promising playwright," and the world treated him well and not too well accordingly. To me, he was the world's worst teacher, and I was his worst student, and he treated me badly and very badly accordingly. There was a jerky rhythm in his step that said, "I really need this teaching job," and also, "I really need to make them think I don't need this teaching job," and also, "I really need to learn to like teaching," and also, "I don't!" It was like he was running away from us, to us, over us, all at once....He torqued his upper body, to right, to left, jazzercising in a sweatless-Hamptons-boat-society way, Izod draped across his slack gut....He needed always to see himself better in his students, not to see his students better in themselves. He ran his comb through his hair to make sure we were never a tangle, never a stray..."
It also feels like a naked confessional, as we learn late in the book, because King's health insurance plan has stopped paying for his therapy sessions. He has discontinued his retail therapy and the book is his "homemade" continuation of it (though not necessarily the end of his collecting). I felt equal measures of empathy and horror reading it, which was well-expressed by Henry Alford's review in the New York Times: "I wanted, by turns, to breast-feed and strangle him."
King, a professor of theater at UC Santa Barbara, writes poetically. I enjoyed this charmingly cruel bit of name-dropping from his days as a student at the Yale School of Drama:
"...I was turned to dust by a simpering, snorting aerobics instructor, an iota named John Guare. He always called himself "the world's oldest promising playwright," and the world treated him well and not too well accordingly. To me, he was the world's worst teacher, and I was his worst student, and he treated me badly and very badly accordingly. There was a jerky rhythm in his step that said, "I really need this teaching job," and also, "I really need to make them think I don't need this teaching job," and also, "I really need to learn to like teaching," and also, "I don't!" It was like he was running away from us, to us, over us, all at once....He torqued his upper body, to right, to left, jazzercising in a sweatless-Hamptons-boat-society way, Izod draped across his slack gut....He needed always to see himself better in his students, not to see his students better in themselves. He ran his comb through his hair to make sure we were never a tangle, never a stray..."
August 27, 2008
I had really high hopes for this book, and there were moments that were everything I'd hoped for, but mostly I found the whole thing rather dull, almost shockingly so. And sometimes quite repetitive. Ultimately, Davies can't seem to decide whether what he's doing is perfectly reasonable and no big deal or whether he wants us all to see how absolutely cool and strange he is. Also, although he alludes to having had therapy and seems quite well-read, he never addresses, in a meaningful way, the extent to which his collecting, and especially the particular forms his mania takes, might be indicative of a larger psychological issue.
August 10, 2008
I was with King for the first few chapters, in spite of the occasional cornball line. (I thought he might collect those, too.) And I'm sympathetic to anyone who devotes the hours and days and years to such impractical activity. But about halfway through (on page 94, to be precise), King lost me with his therepyphilia.
I can't stand the idea of therepy (except, perhaps, for people who have lived through some genuine tragedy or abuse) and I don't have time for anyone who looks to writing as a source of it. I also didn't like the way King seemed to soften his prose (and crank up the corn) after his revelation (that he'd spent the last eight or so years in therepy).
I felt betrayed. Here I thought I was reading something singular, about a singular life, a singular mind. And what I got was a feel-good movie, aimed at the plurality. I was supposed to take his therpist's embrace as a victory, I believe. But instead, I saw it as a failure. And a bore.
I'd like to see his collections, though. I hate to say it(because he is a real person after all) but I'd have rather seen King's obsessions get the better of him. It would have made for a better read.
I can't stand the idea of therepy (except, perhaps, for people who have lived through some genuine tragedy or abuse) and I don't have time for anyone who looks to writing as a source of it. I also didn't like the way King seemed to soften his prose (and crank up the corn) after his revelation (that he'd spent the last eight or so years in therepy).
I felt betrayed. Here I thought I was reading something singular, about a singular life, a singular mind. And what I got was a feel-good movie, aimed at the plurality. I was supposed to take his therpist's embrace as a victory, I believe. But instead, I saw it as a failure. And a bore.
I'd like to see his collections, though. I hate to say it(because he is a real person after all) but I'd have rather seen King's obsessions get the better of him. It would have made for a better read.
February 17, 2009
I agree with everyone who was disappointed in this book. Fascinating topic, dull and self-absorbed treatment by William Davies King. I don't see how anyone could enjoy spending time inside what apparently is a rather sparsely furnished mind. If you want to read a fabulous book (biography rather than autobiography, though) about someone with a mania for collecting peculiar detritus, read Deborah Solomon's UTOPIA PARKWAY, a life of Joseph Cornell. It has the added attraction of being about a genius.
October 8, 2008
Really more an autobiography in very academic language which is not what I expected.
November 29, 2008
If you want to read an autobiography of a collector, this is a good place to start. King talks about his collection habits and how they have changed during his life and had an influence in it. In some ways, this is the typical tale of the negative image of an collector - he collects because he lacks something in his life and collecting takes overe, ruins relationsships and the like. King also has the typical thoughts about what will happen with his collection after he is no longer here and how it will live on in some way or other and thereby keeping him alive in a way.
A lot of the book is textbook - this is how collectors are - but I get the impression that King sees himself as special in a weird and somewhat counterintuitive way because he collects nothing, as he states it. He collects food labels, cereall boxes and stuff like that - which actually isn't nothing but over time becomes really interesting as a showcase of material culture. And besides the collection having some objective value in this way, his collection has the normal subjective value any collection has for it's collector - and that makes his collection of nothing just as important as any other collection.
It bugged me that the author at the same time tries to make himself be somebody qua his collection but constantly rejects it as nothing and talks about all the time he has spend gluing labels to papers etc and how that could have been spent better - the book would have been much more interesting, in my opinion, if he had written an honest account of his life and his collection habits but had been proud of it.
In some ways, he achieves that pride through therapy and with a bit of help from his daughters when they help him organise one part of the collection - the cereal boxes - and he realize how much information is hidden in them and that they also have an aesthetic quality and the power to make people remember - the pride of his collection just comes too late.
He sees himself as different from other collectors because he doesn't go on Ebay and doesn't buy things just for his collection - he only collects what he either eats or uses or what comes to him like chain letters or what he can pick up on the street or in the trash. But this is just one way to show your personality through your collection and at the same time as it distinguishes you as an individual, it is also part of the collection proces and thereby makes you a part of the whole, a part of the collecting world at large. Especially because he does pick through trash - a trash can for him is another collector's Ebay...
The book is in form like a long essay, written to come to terms with life after divorce and yet another break-up - and as a cheaper way of therapy after his health benefits provider stops covering his therapy bills and it has that kind of therapeutic associative quality to it - and in some ways, I really liked that.
And he does bring up some interesting points - mostly points that have been made in other litterature, see Russell W. Belk and Susan M. Pearce for instance, but one point towards the end was interesting: He points out that young people now collects in a different way, like on Facebook or on the Ipod "/.../all the platforms for compiling countless (digital) objects, carefully arranged in categories and containers just like any collection." (151) - now anybody say Goodreads? :-)
But this point is really an interesting one and one I would like to write about as a sort of after thought to my master thesis on collecting.
Interesting quotes:
"Collecting is a constant reassertion of the power to own, an exercise in controlling otherness, and finally a kind of monument building to insure survival after death. For this reason, you can often read the collector in his or her collection, if not in the object themselves, then in the business of acquiring, maintaining, and displaying them. To collect is to write a life." (38)
"It is a paradox that use degrades value, that what is most precious is the untouched object. I had touched my books, and they had touched me." (40)
"An old clock in a collection does not so much tell time as it tells of time, and the tale is a sad one." (55)
"I love it all. I love you, for what you do not love, what you throw away. There's a sad paradox in that. I love you for your lack of love for what I love." (90)
A lot of the book is textbook - this is how collectors are - but I get the impression that King sees himself as special in a weird and somewhat counterintuitive way because he collects nothing, as he states it. He collects food labels, cereall boxes and stuff like that - which actually isn't nothing but over time becomes really interesting as a showcase of material culture. And besides the collection having some objective value in this way, his collection has the normal subjective value any collection has for it's collector - and that makes his collection of nothing just as important as any other collection.
It bugged me that the author at the same time tries to make himself be somebody qua his collection but constantly rejects it as nothing and talks about all the time he has spend gluing labels to papers etc and how that could have been spent better - the book would have been much more interesting, in my opinion, if he had written an honest account of his life and his collection habits but had been proud of it.
In some ways, he achieves that pride through therapy and with a bit of help from his daughters when they help him organise one part of the collection - the cereal boxes - and he realize how much information is hidden in them and that they also have an aesthetic quality and the power to make people remember - the pride of his collection just comes too late.
He sees himself as different from other collectors because he doesn't go on Ebay and doesn't buy things just for his collection - he only collects what he either eats or uses or what comes to him like chain letters or what he can pick up on the street or in the trash. But this is just one way to show your personality through your collection and at the same time as it distinguishes you as an individual, it is also part of the collection proces and thereby makes you a part of the whole, a part of the collecting world at large. Especially because he does pick through trash - a trash can for him is another collector's Ebay...
The book is in form like a long essay, written to come to terms with life after divorce and yet another break-up - and as a cheaper way of therapy after his health benefits provider stops covering his therapy bills and it has that kind of therapeutic associative quality to it - and in some ways, I really liked that.
And he does bring up some interesting points - mostly points that have been made in other litterature, see Russell W. Belk and Susan M. Pearce for instance, but one point towards the end was interesting: He points out that young people now collects in a different way, like on Facebook or on the Ipod "/.../all the platforms for compiling countless (digital) objects, carefully arranged in categories and containers just like any collection." (151) - now anybody say Goodreads? :-)
But this point is really an interesting one and one I would like to write about as a sort of after thought to my master thesis on collecting.
Interesting quotes:
"Collecting is a constant reassertion of the power to own, an exercise in controlling otherness, and finally a kind of monument building to insure survival after death. For this reason, you can often read the collector in his or her collection, if not in the object themselves, then in the business of acquiring, maintaining, and displaying them. To collect is to write a life." (38)
"It is a paradox that use degrades value, that what is most precious is the untouched object. I had touched my books, and they had touched me." (40)
"An old clock in a collection does not so much tell time as it tells of time, and the tale is a sad one." (55)
"I love it all. I love you, for what you do not love, what you throw away. There's a sad paradox in that. I love you for your lack of love for what I love." (90)
July 9, 2010
I collect nothing, but I collect some things too. I collect cameras. I have thirty or so. I have used more than half of them. Some of the cameras require special film that, while still produced, is only available through places on the internet. I collect mini things: anything that is diminutive in size. Mini-cameras are one good example of a marriage of my favorite things to collect. Oh and I collect friends. I have a lot of friends. Brent thinks it must take a lot of energy to stay in contact with all of these people, but because I am an extrovert, I get energy from talking to everyone…but I digress. My collections of nothing include random items.
When I lived with my friend Nicole in law school we moved, or she helped me move, twice. I can pack clothes, I can pack towels, and kitchen items. What I have problems with is my collection of nothing. It is the detritus that has overtaken your junk drawer in your kitchen. Things that may or may not ever be useful again, but that you are not ready to part with. Randomly acquired items that remind me of a moment, a movie, a date. These items currently compete with my yearning for order in my home. I keep my nothing in various containers, in my desk, in giant plastic bins hidden under our stairway. These little objects remind me of places or people. The stuff makes me happy when I go through it.
Mr. King actively collects nothing. His nothing is different than my nothing, but I think it has a similar meaning: his collection makes him happy.
My nothing defies categorization, while his nothing is well organized and catalogued. For example in the book we learn that he has hundreds of cereal boxes from years gone by. He has many tuna can labels. If you were a PhD student in advertising, you would want to go to his collection because in his collection you could trace the changes in language used to catch consumer’s eyes as they shopped.
The book is part self-examination and part confession. What does it mean to collect such things, to basically collect trash?
I had not realized that I too collect trash until I read his book.
What is a collection? This question is at the heart of the book. His conundrum lies as to whether you can collect or hold a collection if the collection has no monetary value. Further, because his collection is so large and well organized, it may have become valuable. Therefore, while he started collecting because of his own feelings of inadequacy, or lack of value, his collecting may have in turn given him value.
The book serves not only as a meditation on his collection but as a memoir about his family. He uses his family history to explore where his collection compulsion comes from.
There was a sense of voyeurism in reading his book. I wanted to know more about what kinds of strange things he has? Where it all comes from? Where the stuff all resides now? I wanted to see pictures and hear stories about how awkward his collection made his life. I am interested in the strangeness of his collecting.
The book did not satisfy these yearnings. I feel like he is a professor, with a hobby, and a complicated family not that different from my own. And at the end of the book I was left to contemplate my own collections and what these collections mean to me.
When I lived with my friend Nicole in law school we moved, or she helped me move, twice. I can pack clothes, I can pack towels, and kitchen items. What I have problems with is my collection of nothing. It is the detritus that has overtaken your junk drawer in your kitchen. Things that may or may not ever be useful again, but that you are not ready to part with. Randomly acquired items that remind me of a moment, a movie, a date. These items currently compete with my yearning for order in my home. I keep my nothing in various containers, in my desk, in giant plastic bins hidden under our stairway. These little objects remind me of places or people. The stuff makes me happy when I go through it.
Mr. King actively collects nothing. His nothing is different than my nothing, but I think it has a similar meaning: his collection makes him happy.
My nothing defies categorization, while his nothing is well organized and catalogued. For example in the book we learn that he has hundreds of cereal boxes from years gone by. He has many tuna can labels. If you were a PhD student in advertising, you would want to go to his collection because in his collection you could trace the changes in language used to catch consumer’s eyes as they shopped.
The book is part self-examination and part confession. What does it mean to collect such things, to basically collect trash?
I had not realized that I too collect trash until I read his book.
What is a collection? This question is at the heart of the book. His conundrum lies as to whether you can collect or hold a collection if the collection has no monetary value. Further, because his collection is so large and well organized, it may have become valuable. Therefore, while he started collecting because of his own feelings of inadequacy, or lack of value, his collecting may have in turn given him value.
The book serves not only as a meditation on his collection but as a memoir about his family. He uses his family history to explore where his collection compulsion comes from.
There was a sense of voyeurism in reading his book. I wanted to know more about what kinds of strange things he has? Where it all comes from? Where the stuff all resides now? I wanted to see pictures and hear stories about how awkward his collection made his life. I am interested in the strangeness of his collecting.
The book did not satisfy these yearnings. I feel like he is a professor, with a hobby, and a complicated family not that different from my own. And at the end of the book I was left to contemplate my own collections and what these collections mean to me.
June 11, 2012
Either this book is really pretentious, or I am not its intended audience. Or, I suppose, both.
The author spends a lot of the book circling back to analytical thoughts about his collecting habit. I can tell you what it boils down to: "objects have no inherent value above what we assign to them. Also, if what you are is lonely, then you need people, not objects." There, now you don't have to read the whole book.
It's puzzling to me, because obviously this author can write. There is a really excellent sestina in here, and a paragraph riffing on the word "putter" in such a subtle way that I didn't figure out until the end of the paragraph what he was doing. There are more puns and riffing. There is some simple concrete discussion of the author's life that was easy to read. (what he wore, what people said, what the landscape was like, etc.)
But always there is the crushingly going-nowhere analysis. Also a lot of words on "how my habit is totally not hoarding" and "how my habit is totally different from other collectors". I think the author knows that these are defensive thoughts and left them in to be revealing, but it didn't work for me.
I just didn't care by the time I got to the end and read how the author's life is so much better now.
The author spends a lot of the book circling back to analytical thoughts about his collecting habit. I can tell you what it boils down to: "objects have no inherent value above what we assign to them. Also, if what you are is lonely, then you need people, not objects." There, now you don't have to read the whole book.
It's puzzling to me, because obviously this author can write. There is a really excellent sestina in here, and a paragraph riffing on the word "putter" in such a subtle way that I didn't figure out until the end of the paragraph what he was doing. There are more puns and riffing. There is some simple concrete discussion of the author's life that was easy to read. (what he wore, what people said, what the landscape was like, etc.)
But always there is the crushingly going-nowhere analysis. Also a lot of words on "how my habit is totally not hoarding" and "how my habit is totally different from other collectors". I think the author knows that these are defensive thoughts and left them in to be revealing, but it didn't work for me.
I just didn't care by the time I got to the end and read how the author's life is so much better now.
December 13, 2022
I greatly enjoyed this book and don't really understand the bad reviews. It seems many folks are put off by the uneasy blend of hobby/collecting and self-confession. The former is fascinating, the latter rather too raw and somewhat pitiful. But this IS a memoir, after all, but there is no need to “like” the author, but simply to make the journey with him, or put the book down. I thought it very well-written: erudite, self-aware (perhaps tediously so) and quite a fascinating glimpse into one man's urge to collecting things, no matter his conceit that he collects “nothing.” Most any reader with their own stash of collected somethings could well enjoy this slim volume. If it appeals even a bit, don't hesitate to give it a try!
March 30, 2009
I liked the way this book started out. While reading this book I found myself alternately wanting to collect some obscure thing (the waxed inter packing of cereal and other food boxes?)or getting a dump box and throwing out every item in my house I no longer use. The later part of the book where King tries to come to terms with his collecting I found cumbersome. As if the over abundance of objects in his world resulted in an over abundance of words. The final chapter does wrap in up in a way that makes the book a worth while read.
July 9, 2009
Some parts are wonderfully written, some parts are too much. My general sense of Dave King is that he is a genius, but that I would hate him. I like the idea paying attention and finding value in mundane things, such as security envelopes (see cover), which isn't exactly what he is saying, but that's what I am taking to my life. His treatment of personal relationships and horrible cruelty about his sister were very offputting, which is why I didn't give 5 stars. I bet that a lot of people will find it too precious, but I think he does precious well.
January 2, 2021
It pains me to say so but this book was not an enjoyable read. The author is at the same time self-centered and self-loathing, I felt like he wanted us to think he is pathetic and a loser but at the same time, an erudite. Nothing he said or does makes me want to engage with him whatsoever. The way he describes women is also unsettling somehow, especially in his younger years.
On a more individual level, I absolutely abhor his writing style : some sentences are overly complicated, his wordplays are absolutely terrible and not clever, he overly uses parentheses, and I couldn't help myself but to skim through those never-ending lists. The book goes in circles and I feel it could have been half as long. Also, I really don't need to be told that I am reading the last chapter and that it is a conclusion (even more so when I am, in fact, reading the penultimate chapter).
To be fair, his relationship with his collection is maybe the most interesting aspect of this book, and to a certain extent, got me curious to see them. In some instances, it got me wondering if and how I should organize my own junk. Should I even keep memorabilia, my old concert tickets and the maps of places I have been to ? Should I also buy a binder and finally organise it or is it just useless to hold on to the physical aspects of my memories ? I enjoyed reading about the consequences of collecting (verging on hoarding) in general and how it shaped his consuming habits. However, I feel that this book could have been so much more, could have gone way deeper in the analysis of what collecting means and implies, could have been a critic of or consumer society.
Overall, I feel that this book is a failed opportunity to learn and reflect more about something all humans do.
On a more individual level, I absolutely abhor his writing style : some sentences are overly complicated, his wordplays are absolutely terrible and not clever, he overly uses parentheses, and I couldn't help myself but to skim through those never-ending lists. The book goes in circles and I feel it could have been half as long. Also, I really don't need to be told that I am reading the last chapter and that it is a conclusion (even more so when I am, in fact, reading the penultimate chapter).
To be fair, his relationship with his collection is maybe the most interesting aspect of this book, and to a certain extent, got me curious to see them. In some instances, it got me wondering if and how I should organize my own junk. Should I even keep memorabilia, my old concert tickets and the maps of places I have been to ? Should I also buy a binder and finally organise it or is it just useless to hold on to the physical aspects of my memories ? I enjoyed reading about the consequences of collecting (verging on hoarding) in general and how it shaped his consuming habits. However, I feel that this book could have been so much more, could have gone way deeper in the analysis of what collecting means and implies, could have been a critic of or consumer society.
Overall, I feel that this book is a failed opportunity to learn and reflect more about something all humans do.
July 8, 2023
I purchased a paper copy of this book for a very odd reason: When I sorted my Goodreads Want-to-read list, it consistently showed up as the lowest rated book there. I challenged myself to either delete it and move on or read it and get it over with. Obviously I chose the latter.
It’s a very odd book, and I was originally disappointed that there were not a lot of beautiful glossy photographs of the author’s nothing collection. But the actual collection (either sadly or not) is not the real story.. Collections of Nothing is more of a memoir.
My philosophy in reviewing books is to review the book I am reading, not criticize it for not being what I expected it to be, or what others wanted it to be.
As a memoirist, King digs deep and bares his soul. He also muses at considerable length about collectors, and collecting and why we do it. There is some overlap between collecting and hoarding, obviously, and King seems to teeter on the edge of this line. As someone who personally feels I could (and sometimes have) (but I’ve now thrown away ALL of my magazines) tip over to the hoarder side, I’m fascinating with others who share this place.
The rating is not five stars because I didn’t absolutely love it. It isn’t four stars because King’s somewhat silly, pretentious writing style was more annoying than entertaining. I had to search out the word “orotund” to describe it, because it’s somehow more than pretentious or pompous.
But still, it’s nowhere near as awful a book as many reviews mention, and if you’re interested in the subject, it’s a short, easy read. I’m sorry there are only a few hundred ratings, and even fewer reviews here.
It’s a very odd book, and I was originally disappointed that there were not a lot of beautiful glossy photographs of the author’s nothing collection. But the actual collection (either sadly or not) is not the real story.. Collections of Nothing is more of a memoir.
My philosophy in reviewing books is to review the book I am reading, not criticize it for not being what I expected it to be, or what others wanted it to be.
As a memoirist, King digs deep and bares his soul. He also muses at considerable length about collectors, and collecting and why we do it. There is some overlap between collecting and hoarding, obviously, and King seems to teeter on the edge of this line. As someone who personally feels I could (and sometimes have) (but I’ve now thrown away ALL of my magazines) tip over to the hoarder side, I’m fascinating with others who share this place.
The rating is not five stars because I didn’t absolutely love it. It isn’t four stars because King’s somewhat silly, pretentious writing style was more annoying than entertaining. I had to search out the word “orotund” to describe it, because it’s somehow more than pretentious or pompous.
But still, it’s nowhere near as awful a book as many reviews mention, and if you’re interested in the subject, it’s a short, easy read. I’m sorry there are only a few hundred ratings, and even fewer reviews here.
June 22, 2019
Among the lenghty descriptions of all things collected the author apparently forgot to mention his most extensive collection: the collection of verbal diarrhea...
December 23, 2019
Not what I expected, and not a fast read, but unique and poetic at times with lots of zingers embedded.
June 13, 2011
I was attracted to this book by both the title and the cover, which looked like squares of textile designs. Actually squares from the inside of security envelopes, they are part of King's "collections of nothing" that reflect the vast amounds of THINGS produced by late 20th century consumer culture.
Having spent 8 years in analysis, he over-interprets this urge to accumulate in my opinion, connecting it too heavily to his family life, especially his sister's illness, and his own self-doubt. But along the way King does make some valid observations that cohere. A conceptual artist in his college years, influenced by poetry, drama, and Dada, the blurry line between collecting and creating is often unclear. Rarticularly in our world, which has so much that is made to be discarded, the natural human urge, born out of a long lean and hungry history, to save and make use of everything found, hunted, and gathered, combined with the impulse to create, has resulted in art that is lost and found, reconfigurated and recycled, both temporary in its wholeness and sadly, too often, indestructible in its parts.
What is discarded can be born again, as a quilt, a scrapbook, a Joseph Cornell box. Song Dong displayed the complete contents of his mother's home in the Museum of Modern Art in 2009. "Wu jin qi yong": Waste Not.
So we collect and though it's not all "art" it all tells a story; and stories, really, are the essence of both our collections and our lives.
King states that he does not know how to end the book and he's right, he does not do it well. He rambles on about, well, nothing. And the beginning of the ending felt like a betrayal.
After inferring for the first 2/3 of the book that his marriage was broken by his habits of collecting, it turns out be be, instead, the yearning for an unattached-and-unencumbered-by-children-and-serious-life woman, sixteen years his junior. This dishonesty and deception really bothered me, and set up my unhappiness with his attempt to complete his thoughts. No spin will redeem or refresh that old cliche. Just ask Anthony Weiner.
Having spent 8 years in analysis, he over-interprets this urge to accumulate in my opinion, connecting it too heavily to his family life, especially his sister's illness, and his own self-doubt. But along the way King does make some valid observations that cohere. A conceptual artist in his college years, influenced by poetry, drama, and Dada, the blurry line between collecting and creating is often unclear. Rarticularly in our world, which has so much that is made to be discarded, the natural human urge, born out of a long lean and hungry history, to save and make use of everything found, hunted, and gathered, combined with the impulse to create, has resulted in art that is lost and found, reconfigurated and recycled, both temporary in its wholeness and sadly, too often, indestructible in its parts.
What is discarded can be born again, as a quilt, a scrapbook, a Joseph Cornell box. Song Dong displayed the complete contents of his mother's home in the Museum of Modern Art in 2009. "Wu jin qi yong": Waste Not.
So we collect and though it's not all "art" it all tells a story; and stories, really, are the essence of both our collections and our lives.
King states that he does not know how to end the book and he's right, he does not do it well. He rambles on about, well, nothing. And the beginning of the ending felt like a betrayal.
After inferring for the first 2/3 of the book that his marriage was broken by his habits of collecting, it turns out be be, instead, the yearning for an unattached-and-unencumbered-by-children-and-serious-life woman, sixteen years his junior. This dishonesty and deception really bothered me, and set up my unhappiness with his attempt to complete his thoughts. No spin will redeem or refresh that old cliche. Just ask Anthony Weiner.
August 24, 2009
I enjoyed King's book a great deal, though it bears the unfortunate burden of falling into that category of academic books that are difficult to "use." The book itself is a sort of auto-ethnography (though he never classifies it as such), detailing King's obsessive collecting of both everything and (as his title suggests) nothing. King collects all sorts of obscure items: patterns from the inside of envelopes, stickers from the outside of fruit, boulders from Santa Barbara's beaches, metal from its junkyards. His collecting habits vary throughout his life, and presenting them here in their totality allows him to reflect on their personal significance as well as the similarities his own habits bear to those of other collectors. He has some interesting things to say about class (particularly the proclivities of middle class collectors versus those who can actually afford to collect what he deems to be things of value). He also makes a variety of useful comparisons between academics and collectors. But the real charm of his book lies in its willingness to engage with the common discourse regarding collectors (particularly the social-psychology people who, from Freud onwards, suggest that collecting works merely as a bulwark against death and loss). King does not deny this as a driving impulse, but somehow also manages to demonstrate how collecting has edifying properties, making it equally about life and growth.
November 2, 2013
"Of making many books there is no end."
"I was, in my early twenties, a member of a visionary, progressive food co-op, the sort of place where you begin your membership by listening to a lengthy Marxist lecture in the basement (rough draft of the manager’s poli-sci dissertation). Four or five sidewalk sofas, discolored plaid, bare lightbulb overhead, Danish schoolbags, slightly damp from the afternoon drizzle, cigarette butts in coffee mugs—that was the décor set by the bored, proto-Gramscian co-op mensch, exhausted from a morning of haggling with wily cheese wholesalers and applying for tenure-track positions at elite liberal arts colleges. For an hour or so, the word “capitalism” got bashed around the basement like a Nerf ball. This store was not friendly to labeling, which was, after all, a celebration of surplus value, so a lot of stuff came from bins, none too clean. Of course, the New Haven Food Co-op itself was a giant package, but inside were scoops and ladles, towers of beans, vats of yogurt and peanut butter, wheels of cheese (purchased at a premium from those thieving bastard wholesalers!), and not much in the way of meat. To stock Kellogg’s or Nabisco in this place would have been a crime against society. Jif was capitulation. Nestlé was murder."
"I was, in my early twenties, a member of a visionary, progressive food co-op, the sort of place where you begin your membership by listening to a lengthy Marxist lecture in the basement (rough draft of the manager’s poli-sci dissertation). Four or five sidewalk sofas, discolored plaid, bare lightbulb overhead, Danish schoolbags, slightly damp from the afternoon drizzle, cigarette butts in coffee mugs—that was the décor set by the bored, proto-Gramscian co-op mensch, exhausted from a morning of haggling with wily cheese wholesalers and applying for tenure-track positions at elite liberal arts colleges. For an hour or so, the word “capitalism” got bashed around the basement like a Nerf ball. This store was not friendly to labeling, which was, after all, a celebration of surplus value, so a lot of stuff came from bins, none too clean. Of course, the New Haven Food Co-op itself was a giant package, but inside were scoops and ladles, towers of beans, vats of yogurt and peanut butter, wheels of cheese (purchased at a premium from those thieving bastard wholesalers!), and not much in the way of meat. To stock Kellogg’s or Nabisco in this place would have been a crime against society. Jif was capitulation. Nestlé was murder."
July 8, 2009
If I dog ear pages and underline passages, no matter the weaknesses of the book - and this has plent yof weaknesses - there is something in it that struck me. I don't think I would like the author as a human being but his collection is insane and fascinating - 621 cereal boxes, labels from canned beans, toothpaste boxes etc. 2 tons of paper ephemera. It may not surprise you but he is divorced. As a packrat and collecter of snippets and useless junk, I found a common ground here, including his working in an archive and taking home the used file folders etc. - not the valuable documents in them. I feel the same way at the archive, and it is literally painful to throw out the paper collections and containers. I found the most resonance in a section where he discovers Joseph Cornell and tries to create a box of his collected goods - but is too afraid to sacrifice the really good things so creates this half ass attempt - oh how many times over the years I have hesitated and held on to the really good things in my collections and wasted them to decay, drying up, breaking anyway. I related, obviously.
April 20, 2013
Höfundurinn William Davies King lýsir hér ævi sinni sem forfallinn safnari sem safnar öllu - sem er verðlaust og einskis nýtt. Af því dregur bókin nafn sitt Collections of Nothing. Hann gerir heiðarlega og ítarlega tilraun til þess að skilgreina sjálfan sig og þörf sína fyrir að safna hlutum og dregur þannig fram í dagsljósið erfiða barnæsku, skilnað og sjálfsskömm sem líklegar ástæður um leið og hann segir frá söfnum sínum og annarra um leið og hann gerir greinarmun á sinni áráttu og öðrum söfnurum.
Þetta er heillandi frásögn og veitti mér heillandi innsýn í hugarheim safnarans sem stöðvar bílinn á þjóðveginum, hleypur út og sækir einhvern hlut sem hann sá í vegkantinum. Náunginn sem leitar í rusladöllum í hliðargötum og heima hjá vinum til að finna merkimiða á sardínudósum o.s.frv. o.s.frv.
Stórskemmtileg frásögn en því miður var hún of langdregin á köflum, sérstaklega um miðbikið. Ég féll í stafi fyrir frásögninni í upphafi, dauðleiddist um miðbikið en frásögn Kings snerti mig djúpt í lokin þegar hann fór meira inn í samskipti sín við dætur sínar og unnustu sem var að fara að giftast.
Þetta er heillandi frásögn og veitti mér heillandi innsýn í hugarheim safnarans sem stöðvar bílinn á þjóðveginum, hleypur út og sækir einhvern hlut sem hann sá í vegkantinum. Náunginn sem leitar í rusladöllum í hliðargötum og heima hjá vinum til að finna merkimiða á sardínudósum o.s.frv. o.s.frv.
Stórskemmtileg frásögn en því miður var hún of langdregin á köflum, sérstaklega um miðbikið. Ég féll í stafi fyrir frásögninni í upphafi, dauðleiddist um miðbikið en frásögn Kings snerti mig djúpt í lokin þegar hann fór meira inn í samskipti sín við dætur sínar og unnustu sem var að fara að giftast.
February 17, 2011
I thought Collections of Nothing had a lot to offer.
It covers an topic that's interesting to me: hoarding. As an author, Davies King has a unique point-of-view: that of an intelligent insightful hoarder who is at least partially aware of the excess of what he is doing every obsessive step of the way. Davies King worked in an archive in college and teaches theater at a California university today. He even spent his early life in the same part of Ohio I grew up in. These are all things that intrigued me.
But in the end, I couldn't quite get past the Davies King's grating narcissistic and insecure voice. He drones, frets, and whines about the burden he has assigned himself of collecting all manner of day-to-day ephemera that passes through his life for the full length of the book. I finished the book with only a slightly greater sense of what it feels like to be compelled to collect. No huge revelations here.
It covers an topic that's interesting to me: hoarding. As an author, Davies King has a unique point-of-view: that of an intelligent insightful hoarder who is at least partially aware of the excess of what he is doing every obsessive step of the way. Davies King worked in an archive in college and teaches theater at a California university today. He even spent his early life in the same part of Ohio I grew up in. These are all things that intrigued me.
But in the end, I couldn't quite get past the Davies King's grating narcissistic and insecure voice. He drones, frets, and whines about the burden he has assigned himself of collecting all manner of day-to-day ephemera that passes through his life for the full length of the book. I finished the book with only a slightly greater sense of what it feels like to be compelled to collect. No huge revelations here.
January 10, 2012
I wish I could give it one-and-a-half stars - that seems more appropriate.
King has some fascinating thoughts on collecting/collection and its relation to identity and the construction of a narrative of self, a performance - ideas that are central to my academic work. However, the whole book reads like a self-indulgent prologue to a book that examines the intersection of conspicuous consumption, collection and the self in a rigorous and and academic way, never quite getting to the meat of the issue. Instead, Collections of Nothing is an overlong autobiography dripping with self-pity and self-psychoanalysis. I found myself rolling my eyes every time King mentioned his therapist.
One good thing about it, it is short. The worst thing about it is that I will have to dig through the prose to find that parts I want to re-examine and think about regarding collection, but I guess the fact that it is short will help.
King has some fascinating thoughts on collecting/collection and its relation to identity and the construction of a narrative of self, a performance - ideas that are central to my academic work. However, the whole book reads like a self-indulgent prologue to a book that examines the intersection of conspicuous consumption, collection and the self in a rigorous and and academic way, never quite getting to the meat of the issue. Instead, Collections of Nothing is an overlong autobiography dripping with self-pity and self-psychoanalysis. I found myself rolling my eyes every time King mentioned his therapist.
One good thing about it, it is short. The worst thing about it is that I will have to dig through the prose to find that parts I want to re-examine and think about regarding collection, but I guess the fact that it is short will help.
January 6, 2009
There are sections of this book that make for good reading aloud. The author is playful with words. I think he's really dealing at times more in documenting aspects of his life than in collecting. He makes no attempt to portray himself as personally likeable. This book is in the form of a long essay in parts. I was surprised at the bad proof-reading for a book published by a university press (e.g., "castille" for "castile," "McVitti's" for "McVities" or "McVitie's," etc.). I did enjoy this slender book, which is not only about the urge to collect and classify items of no monetary worth but also, off to the sides, about family life and other topics. I'm glad that this book was on the library shelves.
September 18, 2012
This autobiography is mainly a telling of the hoarding of the author: how it started, what he collects (nothing, as he says in the title, by which he means objects that have no value whatsoever, like labels of food-cans or empty cereal boxes)and what this collecting means to him and to other people.
I had thought I would have found this book very interesting, but this was not the case. It is well written, but I feel it lacks something, although I couldn't say what exactly. Perhaps I would have liked more about what the collections mean to him, although it is clear that King himself doesn't quite know.
I think this book is a must, however, for people who are hoarders themselves, or those that have to live with someone who hoards.
I had thought I would have found this book very interesting, but this was not the case. It is well written, but I feel it lacks something, although I couldn't say what exactly. Perhaps I would have liked more about what the collections mean to him, although it is clear that King himself doesn't quite know.
I think this book is a must, however, for people who are hoarders themselves, or those that have to live with someone who hoards.
January 10, 2012
I liked King better in the beginning of the book, reflecting on his collecting through his childhood, and the meanings of collections generally. I saw myself in the writing and the idea of creating an identity around the things you acquire and give meaning to in your life. In the middle he talked of his collections of nothing (including labels and envelopes) which had pictures and some particular interest and the end ground down into a memoir of his current day life. A memoir with too much talking and very little description and only tangentially related to collecting. His therapy may have helped him personally, his occasional reversion to talk of sex and elimination did not help the book for me.
January 30, 2009
wow! so I managed to ready one 159 page book in one month. That would be a little more than 6 pages a day! Wow!
i don't really know what to say about this book here. I appreciated it to an extent but i wish there was more memoir and less talk of cereal box collecting. if i met william davies king, i'm sure i'd hate him. I Can't tell if he takes himself really seriously or his humor is just THAT dry and I'm THAT dumb that I don't get it. One thing that stood out in this book is that King, in college, did an art project where he would xerox blank pieces of paper over and over and over and over again. i didn't get if he realized how retarded that is. that's all.
i don't really know what to say about this book here. I appreciated it to an extent but i wish there was more memoir and less talk of cereal box collecting. if i met william davies king, i'm sure i'd hate him. I Can't tell if he takes himself really seriously or his humor is just THAT dry and I'm THAT dumb that I don't get it. One thing that stood out in this book is that King, in college, did an art project where he would xerox blank pieces of paper over and over and over and over again. i didn't get if he realized how retarded that is. that's all.
June 6, 2009
Well, I must confess to not having finished this book. I've spend a good 2 months trying to get through it which is pretty sad given that it's only 163 pages long, but enough is enough. I was given this book as a gift because of my collector mentality, and I had great hopes of reading the thoughts of a fellow collector, but at page 139 I quit. I could care less about his further thoughts and experiences. This could have been an interesting essay in the New Yorker, but instead it's a sort of stream of conscience blather that should have stayed in the author's therapy sessions. I think the only way I could finish this book is I were paid to.
August 16, 2009
King is a collector. He has collected things since he was a little boy. What does he collect? Worthless things, he says. Labels from boxes and cans, for the most part. But he also has several other, equally useless collections.
King thinks about his collecting and puts it into context by revealing the events of his life and the larger world.
I can’t really see someone going out and purchasing this book. It leaves you with a sense of having wasted your time reading it, with King dwelling on the meaninglessness of his collecting and of his life. He seems to find some meaning in the meaninglessness of everything, but that is way too philosophical for me.
King thinks about his collecting and puts it into context by revealing the events of his life and the larger world.
I can’t really see someone going out and purchasing this book. It leaves you with a sense of having wasted your time reading it, with King dwelling on the meaninglessness of his collecting and of his life. He seems to find some meaning in the meaninglessness of everything, but that is way too philosophical for me.
April 30, 2012
This book is less a memoir of collecting than it is the pitiful, masturbatory (sometimes literally) meditations of a middle-aged man who still feels emotionally damaged from growing up with a sister with cerebral palsy and not getting laid enough in his early 20s. King admits that he started writing this book as a way of replacing professional counseling, and the sense of the book as a process of self-analysis is evident in its abrupt transitions. I was relieved when it ended on a happy note -- hopefully King won't have any further need to inflict his "no one in my life has thought I'm as special as I know I am" pain on the world.
University of Chicago Press: really?
University of Chicago Press: really?
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