SEOUL · the process of reading can be quite a personal affair, and so were the participants' thoughts about this BOOK.ING's topic: ESCAPE.

the approaches were diverse, and included strategies of overcoming personal fears – in this case with the help of DIY insect robots), reflections about social escapist ideas, personal gestures of turning the back towards the unknown, afrofuturist concepts of aliens and motherships, and a poem by english poet philip larkin. as a special additional treat, two design books got introduced as well, which made their way into this round by accident – a study about mapping and memory and a book about french graphic designer Pierre Bernard.

books about ESCAPE:
Lord of the flies by William Golding
Fearless: the 7 principles of peace of mind by Brenda Shoshanna
Adventures in Sonic Fiction by Kodwo Eshun
Vues de dos by Michel Tournier, Eduard Boubat
My work is not my work: Peirre Bernard by Hugues Boekraad
Central London A to Z by Sunhee Yang
Poetry of Departures by Philip Larkin

POETRY OF DEPARTURES
Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,
As epitaph:
He chucked up everything
And just cleared off,
And always the voice will sound
Certain you approve
This audacious, purifying,
Elemental move.

And they are right, I think.
We all hate home
And having to be there:
I detect my room,
It's specially-chosen junk,
The good books, the good bed,
And my life, in perfect order:
So to hear it said

He walked out on the whole crowd
Leaves me flushed and stirred,
Like Then she undid her dress
Or Take that you bastard;
Surely I can, if he did?
And that helps me to stay
Sober and industrious.
But I'd go today,

Yes, swagger the nut-strewn roads,
Crouch in the fo'c'sle
Stubbly with goodness, if
It weren't so artificial,
Such a deliberate step backwards
To create an object:
Books; china; a life
Reprehensibly perfect.

see BOOK.ING Vol. 1