"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us." - Kafka
Books are needles of knowledge, piercing through layers of complacency and numbness we build over time. Like a needle pricking the skin, a book jolts the mind, forcing it to confront new perspectives. This process can be unsettling and painful, compelling us to witness suffering beyond our own. Books target ignorance with precison, delivering insights that penetrate to our core.
2025: A Year of Piercing Pages is a calendar that demonstrates this concept. Every month, the reader pierces through a new page — moving from skin to muscle, heart to mind, and finally reaching the soul. Each month recommends a 'painful' yet necessary book, inviting reflection on the experiences of others. At the end, the user would have broken through each barrier, emerging with a deeper understanding of the world. This work is a call to confront discomfort through books.
To use this calendar, the user must take off the stoppers, fold each page upwards at the halfway point marked by the needles, and pierce through the page.
Flipthrough
The books chosen for each month consist of memoirs of people who have lived through challenging times, or stories of war, human atrocities, disasters and more.
As time passes, the user would have pierced through 11 layers in total, from the outermost layer of the skin to the last layer - the soul.
