This book has had been with me for many years. It is a gift; it came to my knowledge when searching for books for architects, but I soon realised it is not necessarily just for architects. In fact, it's difficult understanding who exactly is this book for, or what purpose Bachelard was trying to tackle. In the Introduction, he mentions "wanting to study the problems posed by the poetic imagination" where "the cultural past doesn't count". Some pages later, there are talks about the "phenomenology of the soul", and poetic revery as one possible definition of the phenomenon.

The first chapter, which I have read a long, long time ago, pertains to the house. Bachelard introduces the concept of topoanalysis, which "would be the systematic psychological study of the sites of our intimate lives".

And if we want to go beyond history, or even, while remaining in history, detach from our own history the always too contigent history of the persons who have encumbered it, we realise that the calendars of our lives can only be established in its imagery.

These thoughts have some echoes of Proust's obsession with memory.