Tagged: Henry Petroski

Book on the Bookshelf Petroski

Book Review / Books and Reading

Book Review: The Book on the Bookshelf

The ordinary is always more fascinating than we think. Chesterton knew this, and Henry Petroski knows it. Petroski’s The Book on the Bookshelf traces the development of the bookshelf as a reflection of the changing nature of books, and in the process he reminds us that nothing is too ordinary to be written about. The book is part history, part personal reflection and part social science. From descriptions of medieval libraries to debates about where to place bookshelves in a library, Petroski writes in an engaging and warm...

Book on the Bookshelf Petroski

Books and Reading

The Book on the Bookshelf Reading Update

I’ve had very little time to read lately, but I have been able to snatch a few pages here and there of Henry Petroski’s The Book on the Bookshelf. Here are a few interesting things I’ve learned so far: Early writers did not put spaces in between their words. Word separation became common only after printing was invented. I knew that the word Bible came from the Greek word for book, biblion, but I did not know that biblion came from byblos, from the Phoenician city that was...