Books

A Philosophy of Buttons

Paraphernalia: The Curious Lives of Magical Things by Steven Connor Profile Books, 2011, 256 pages, £14.99 Paraphernalia, the latest offering by the cultural phenomenologist Steven Connor, the Birkbeck scholar who gave us a dermatological vision of the cosmos in magnificently distended detail in The Book of Skin (2004), has eighteen chapters, each dedicated to a single object. Here they are, in alphabetical order: bags, batteries, buttons, cards, combs, glasses, handkerchiefs, keys, knots, newspapers, pills, pins, pipes, plugs, rubber bands, sticky tape, sweets, wires. His brilliant extemporisations on the standard and non-standard uses of things familiar ought to acquire for their author the…

Subscribe to get access to all online articles

Digital Subscription

$/ YR

Get the latest ideas from Australia’s most insightful writers.

Subscribe

  • Digital Subscription includes
  • Online editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • Printed editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • iPad ready PDF
  • Access to Quadrant Archives
  •  
  •  

Digital Subscription

$/ YR

Get the latest ideas from Australia’s most insightful writers.

Subscribe

  • Digital Subscription includes
  • Online editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • Printed editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • iPad ready PDF
  • Access to Quadrant Archives
  •  
  •  

Digital Subscription

$/ YR

Get the latest ideas from Australia’s most insightful writers.

Subscribe

  • Digital Subscription includes
  • Online editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • Printed editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • iPad ready PDF
  • Access to Quadrant Archives
  •  
  •  

Digital Subscription

$/ YR

Get the latest ideas from Australia’s most insightful writers.

Subscribe

  • Digital Subscription includes
  • Online editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • Printed editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • iPad ready PDF
  • Access to Quadrant Archives
  •  
  •  

Digital Subscription

$/ YR

Get the latest ideas from Australia’s most insightful writers.

Subscribe

  • Digital Subscription includes
  • Online editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • Printed editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • iPad ready PDF
  • Access to Quadrant Archives
  •  
  •  

Digital Subscription

$/ YR

Get the latest ideas from Australia’s most insightful writers.

Subscribe

  • Digital Subscription includes
  • Online editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • Printed editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • iPad ready PDF
  • Access to Quadrant Archives
  •  
  •  

Digital Subscription

$/ YR

Get the latest ideas from Australia’s most insightful writers.

Subscribe

  • Digital Subscription includes
  • Online editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • Printed editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • iPad ready PDF
  • Access to Quadrant Archives
  •  
  •  

Printed & Digital Subscription

$/ YR

For avid readers of leading ideas
from Australia’s brightest.

Subscribe

  • Printed & Digital Subscription includes
  • Online editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • Printed editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • iPad ready PDF
  • Access to Quadrant Archives
  •  
  •  

Printed & Digital Subscription

$/ YR

For avid readers of leading ideas
from Australia’s brightest.

Subscribe

  • Printed & Digital Subscription includes
  • Online editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • Printed editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • iPad ready PDF
  • Access to Quadrant Archives
  •  
  •  

Printed & Digital Subscription

$/ YR

For avid readers of leading ideas
from Australia’s brightest.

Subscribe

  • Printed & Digital Subscription includes
  • Online editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • Printed editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • iPad ready PDF
  • Access to Quadrant Archives
  •  
  •  

Digital Subscription

$98/ YR

Get the latest ideas from Australia’s most insightful writers.

Subscribe

  • Digital Subscription includes
  • Online editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • Printed editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • iPad ready PDF
  • Access to Quadrant Archives
  •  
  •  

Printed & Digital Subscription

$118/ YR

For avid readers of leading ideas
from Australia’s brightest.

Subscribe

  • Printed & Digital Subscription includes
  • Online editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • Printed editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • iPad ready PDF
  • Access to Quadrant Archives
  •  
  •  

Quadrant Patron

$300/ YR

Show your support for Australia’s
most open minded publication.

Subscribe

  • Quadrant Patron includes
  • Online editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • Printed editions of Quadrant Magazine
  • iPad ready PDF
  • Access to Quadrant Archives
  • All new editions of Quadrant Books
  • Exclusive invitations to Quadrant Dinners, book launches and events.