Here is what I wrote when I started a series of essays on books and reading in the Kyoto-based journal DiaTxt, edited by Hiroshi Yoshioka. The journal is now defunct; I post this only for record.
"Books are unreadable. Books are uncountable. Books are untameable. In reading one is defined and redefined, combined and recombined, unveiled, agitated, pulverized, multiplied, metamorphosed. Texts are boundless and they call out to each other, reading is endless and it calls for yet another, in your effort to understand, experience, and experiment with, the world. This is no ordinary book review. It deals with books old and new, famous and unknown, high and low, across languages and genres. Welcome to the world of wild, nomadic, omniphone reading by the author of Tropical Gossip."
