The Arcades Project

A book to dip into rather than read cover to cover. Beautifully written, thought provoking, ahead of its time. Full of quotable lines.

Quick shipping. Item as described.

Makes a great text available in English. The book is produced well. To be read in conjunction with Benjamin's contemporary Bloch, The Principle of Hope. Two books about everything.

This is a weighty tome which I found impossible to plough through at my usual brisk pace, so I put it aside after my initial attempts. However I keep returning to it and fitfully progressing. I have little idea what I am getting from it and yet I still come back months after starting. It sits on my bedside table as other books come and go and it still sits in my mind. Odd.

missing pages

Excellent product and my 3 dogs love them

a joy to read

I bought this not really being sure of what to expect. I had read some Benjamin previously but hadn't really got along with it and was a little worried that this would only be compunded by his "magnum opus". I need not have worried! Not least because Benjamin's presence here is not as a writer but as an assembler - arranging fragments and quotes into meaningful sections and building from these a cohesive whole."The whole" tends towards the recreation of the experience of the Flauneur in a Paris where there city envirnment was still conducive to their style of life - loitering, noticing and experiencing. The manifold perspectives and descriptions which inform this life make you wish for such an interesting time of things. Or endeavour to create one out of your relatively unpromising situation.There is an excellent account from one of Benjamin's co-travellers on his last voyage regarding his over-protectiveness of his manuscript and his comical air. The volume as a whole has made me reassess my opinion of the writer - no longer to be thought of an inscrutible literary critic amongst his Frankfurt fellows, he is herein conveyed as someone passionate about life and possibility.