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 a major exporter of papyrus.
- It took the skin of one sheep to make one page of vellum.
And one of my favorite quotes:
“Books spend a lot of time on bookshelves, hanging around near the curb, as it were, waiting for someone to come along with an idea for something to do. Books are the wallflowers at the dance, standing up but leaning on one another and depending upon one another for their collective status. Books are the Martyrs of Saturday nights, ending up in the same place at the same time week after week. Books in dust jackets are the queue at the bus stop, the line of commuters with their faces hidden in their newspapers. Books are the thugs in the lineup, all fitting a profile but with only one of them expecting to be picked out. Books are the object of searches.”
I can’t wait for Spring Break next week, so I can read it more leisurely.
