Jean-Luc Nancy (1940–2021) was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Université de Strasbourg and one of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century's foremost thinkers of politics, art, and the body. His wide-ranging thought runs through many books, including Being Singular Plural, The Ground of the Image, Corpus, The Disavowed Community, and Sexistence. His book The Intruder was adapted into an acclaimed film by Claire Denis.David Wills is Professor of French Studies and Comparative Literature at Brown University. His major work, on the originary technicity of the human, is developed in three books: Prosthesis (Stanford, 1995), Dorsality (Minnesota, 2008), and Inanimation (Minnesota, 2016). He has translated various works by Jacques Derrida, including the forthcoming Theory and Practice (Chicago, 2018).

"Delights the mind with its turns of phrase, its creative reinterpretations of ordinary concepts, and its remarkable rigor." -- -Sander van Maas Utrecht University and University of Amsterdam "More than an eloge to books and bookstores, or to the book or the bookstore, Jean-Luc Nancy's evocative essay reminds us of the crucial link between reading and politics that keeps open the possibility of enlightenment. Nancy touches suggestively on the book as what Stephane Mallarme called 'a spiritual instrument,' illuminating the epochal philosophical and religious developments for which books have been the indispensable material support. Nancy's book contains the philosophical weight and literary flair that has made him one of the most important thinkers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As David Wills helpfully points out in the preface to his excellent translation, Nancy's thoughts on books and bookstores extend his reflection on the possibility of the truly singular plurality of community." -- -Kevin McLaughlin Brown University "Opening this little 'Aleph' of a book is a most extraordinary adventure; the universe and how we know it unfolds in startling profundity. I thought I knew what a book was until I read this, but Nancy has set me off again in search of the million things a book can be." -- -Lewis Buzbee author of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop