Perhaps the beauty of Sendb00ks is the simplicity of its concept. Each month, subscribers receive a book selected by founder Gemma Janes, or a friend of the project, accompanied by a postcard that she has commissioned an artist to design with the title in mind. However, complications recently arose when the French postal service became too unreliable to guarantee deliveries, (Sendb00ks has temporarily halted its sending of books) in the meantime, the virtual doors of Sendb00ks School opened. A weekly online seminar, led by Anitra Louire, lecturer of Philosophy of Art at La Sorbonne, offers the Sendb00ks community a new reason to read for pleasure, by asking the question, ‘What is Beauty?’. From Plato to Baudelaire, Umberto Eco to Jun’ichirō Tanazaki, similar and competing theories that attempt to answer this question are reviewed, with the benefit of Louire’s encyclopaedic knowledge and Janes’ infectious enthusiasm.
