Sock

by Kim Adrian, Ian Bogost (Editor), Christopher Schaberg (Editor)

Overview

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Who ponders the sock? This common object is something people tug on and take off daily with hardly a thought. Unraveling the garment's history, construction, and use, Kim Adrian's Sock reintroduces us to our own bodies- vulnerable, bipedal, and flawed.

Sock reminds us that extraordinary secrets live in mundane material realities, and shows how this floppy, often smelly, sometimes holey piece of clothing, whether machine-made or hand-knit, can also serve as an anatomy lesson, a physics primer, a love letter, a weapon, a fetish, and a fashion statement.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501315060
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/07/2017
Series:	Object Lessons
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	4.50(w) x 6.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Kim Adrian is an award-winning writer based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Agni, the Gettysburg Review, Crazyhorse, the New England Review, and elsewhere. She has been the recipient of a P.E.N. New England Discover Award, and Artist's Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, three Pushcart Prize nominations, and a scholarship to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her most recent book is The 27th Letter of the Alphabet.

Ian Bogost is an author and an award-winning game designer. He is Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, Director of Film & Media Studies, and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Bogost is also Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC, an independent game studio, and a Contributing Editor at The Atlantic. Bogost is author or co-author of ten books, including Alien Phenomenology (2012)and Play Anything (2016).

Christopher Schaberg is Director of the Program in Public Scholarship at Washington University in St. Louis, USA, and the author of The Textual Life of Airports (2012), The End of Airports (2015), Airportness (2017), The Work of Literature in an Age of Post-Truth (2018), Searching for the Anthropocene (2019), Pedagogy of the Depressed (2021), and Adventure: An Argument for Limits (2023), all published by Bloomsbury. He is also the founding co-editor (with Ian Bogost) of Bloomsbury's Object Lessons book series.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Socks & Evolution
2. Socks & Desire
3. Socks & Industry
Coda: Instructions for Darning a Sock
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

Kim Adrian's Sock is the darndest thing. Witty and sly, written with the highest tactile precision, it is at the same time stacked with erudite asides and unexpected perspectives. Adrian reminds us where the ground lies and how we move upon it-and what miraculous things we have encasing our feet as we do so.” —Sven Birkerts, author of Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age

“Fun, focused, and footloose!” —Nicholson Baker, author of The Way the World Works: Essays

“[This book] serves to entertain in its erudite approach to yet another unexpected subject.” —The Bookbag

“Through a discussion of the footwear's material, social and cultural evolution, Sock reflects on the brilliance present in the minutiae of our lives. With piercing wit, idiosyncratic humor and sharply insightful moments of personal examination, Adrian uses the most domestic of items as a lens through which to view the inelegance and wondrousness of humanity. Encompassing the utility of protecting an essentially vulnerable, uncomfortable body and the bonds mothers form with the objects that cover the delicate toes of their babies, Adrian's warm, insightful investigation will give this common object new prominence in any reader's mind. Sock delivers a detailed exploration of human nature through whimsically astute commentary on a common, closely held object.” —Shelf Awareness

“An utterly engaging investigation - not so much of [the sock], per se, as of human evolution, anatomy, physics, sexuality, fashion, painting, consumerism, manufacturing, and motherhood … illuminating, erudite, deeply intelligent.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“If a book called Sock makes you think, 'Twenty-five-thousand words on socks? Uh, no,' then you're unclear on the concept. You're also missing out on a thoroughly delightful discussion.” —Washington Independent Review of Books

“A remarkable read, a perfectly satisfying balance of fact and quirk and charm.” —Knitty

From the Publisher