The book turns itself as a list of lists (or even a list of lists of lists?), and it’s filled with fragments of examples extracted from centuries of literature, from many varied sources. It’s a vast compendium of some of the many forms a list can adopt, and of what could be considered as a list, although most of the times we (or at least I) wouldn’t even think of them in such a way. This book was (is) such a joy, and a real treasure to have, as I feel for most visual books with heavy paper and lots of beautiful art to get lost into. His essay is accompanied by a literary anthology and a wide selection of works of art illustrating and analyzing the texts presented. (from Goodreads) In this edition, Umberto Eco reflects on how the idea of catalogues has changed over the centuries and how, from one period to another, it has expressed the spirit of the times. We also find it more obliquely from Homer to Joyce, from the treasures of Gothic cathedrals to the fantastic landscapes of Bosch and cabinets of curiosities, until we get to Andy Warhol and Arman in the 20th century. We do not only see it at work in ancient bestiaries, the celestial hosts of angels or the naturalist collections of the 16th century. The poetics of lists runs throughout the history of art and literature. This infinity of lists is no coincidence: a culture prefers enclosed, stable forms when it is sure of its own identity, while when faced with a jumbled series of ill-defined phenomena, it starts making lists. In the history of Western culture we find lists of saints, ranks of soldiers, catalogues of grotesque creatures or medicinal plants, and hordes of treasure.

The Infinity of Lists by Umberto Eco