Typography

The Weekly Wrap: January 26-February 1

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
woman in white crew neck t shirt in a bookstore wrapping books
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Book Groups

Many of us who enjoy reading love to discuss what we are reading with others. I’ve been a part of one book group or another for nearly thirty years. And I have to say that the books I’ve discussed in groups have been the ones that have stayed with me.

I’m thinking of this because the book group of which I’m a part just finished our latest book. Now, the idea of getting together to talk about books seems inherently nerdy. Our group probably takes that to another level. We dig into theological texts, usually a chapter at a time, a week at a time, working through a book. Our latest was N.T. Wright’s The Challenge of Acts. And if that sounds nerdy, our next book is Judea under Greek and Roman Rule by David deSilva, which looks at critical background behind the Gospels and Acts.

What makes it work is we are reading what we want to read. And while our choices might seem strange, I think the principle is important, whether the group is into romantasy, historical or literary fiction, or non-fiction. We also talked about something else important. We look for books that don’t just inform us but give us something to discuss or even disagree with. They engage us, stretch our horizons, make us think and re-think.

I’d enjoy hearing from others who have been part of book groups that you thought were good. What made them work?

Five Articles Worth Reading

Her latest book, Onyx Storm, broke first week sales records, selling 2.7 million copies. In “Rebecca Yarros’s ‘Onyx Storm’ Is the Fastest-Selling Adult Novel in 20 Years,” Alexandra Alter explores her phenomenal emergence as the leading romantasy author.

There is a renewed fascination with analog–vinyl records, VHS and audio cassettes, film, hand-drawn game maps, letters–you name it. In “The Stranger Things Effect Comes for the Novel,” Mark Athitakis explores this phenomenon as it manifests in recent fiction.

Agnes Callard considers the shift she has seen in children’s literature to characters that are “weird” in some way in “Where the Wild Things Aren’t.” She explores why this is important to children and what this signifies.

Have you wondered why we refer to characters in a text as uppercase or lower text? Mental Floss answers this question in “The Surprisingly Literal Reason We Call Letters ‘Uppercase’ and ‘Lowercase’.”

Finally, I probably don’t have to do much to convince this crowd of what a good thing libraries are. But we may need to advocate for that in some communities that don’t see the value. James Folta summarizes a new study by the New York Public Library that confirms “It’s official: Research has found that libraries make everything better.“

Quote of the Week

“To read is to surrender oneself to an endless displacement of curiosity and desire from one sentence to another”

David Lodge, who was born January 28, 1935 was an English author, critic, and professor. This statement caught me up short, making me reflect on what may be one of the reasons for my undying love of reading. David Lodge died on January 1, 2025.

Miscellaneous Musings

I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about the announcement by the publisher of Simon and Schuster that they will no longer require authors to solicit “blurbs” for their books. Sometimes the practice seems excessive, when I have to wade through page after page of these endorsements. But I also have to admit, that with an unfamiliar author, who endorses them tells me about their audience and serves as a clue as to whether I’ll like it. What do you think?

I’m about 200 pages into Haruki Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls and it feels a bit like walking through a labyrinth, with a surprise around each corner, and no clue what lies at the center. It plays on questions of what is real, what is substance and shadow. I’ll let you know what I thgink of it when I figure that out! But I’m enthralled.

I’ve loved the idea of Bookshop.org as an online platform that supports indie bookstores. To date, they have generated nearly $36 million for over 1900 stores. This week, they expanded their capacity by offering a way to purchase e-books and support your favorite local indie. you can read more about it here.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: The Month in Reviews: January 2025 (21 reviews)

Tuesday: Samuel Parkison, To Gaze Upon God

Wednesday: Stuart M. Kaminsky, Lieberman’s Choice

Thursday: Timothy P. Carney, Family Unfriendly

Friday: Amy Peeler, Hebrews

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for January 26-February 1, 2025!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.

Musings on What We Mean By “Book”

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment

people-2572105_1280

Does this child with a book remind you of any other images of a reading child?

I’ve read several articles recently that have me musing on what we mean by “book,” and why our books are configured as they are.

Tablets and scrolling are not new things in terms of recording human words. Narratives carved in stone of everything from legal texts to grocery lists have survived millenia. At one time, animal skins were sewn together into long sheets on which columns of text were written, and then rolled up in a scroll. (Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road on a continuous sheet of paper!).

The book, as most of us knew it growing up developed when those skins or sheets of papyrus were folded and bound into what technically is called a “codex.” This also helps account for why books exist in the rectangular shape they do. A mathematician, Raul Rosarivo studied Renaissance books and came up with a Golden Number of page construction which is 1.5 or a ratio of 2:3 for width:length. “Why are Books That Shape?” goes into all of this at greater length. As books transitioned from large objects read on a table to handheld objects,  the size and shape of books conformed well to the human hand. The article also observes that the ideal number of characters on a line is 66 (and a range of 45-75), which is why magazine formats and some books use columns.

The article also makes the fascinating observation that the transition to handheld e-book devices didn’t change all this. Early Kindles conformed to this “golden number” in its shape. It would be interesting to study our adjustments of font size to see how close they come to the 66 character ideal.

What e-readers did in our time is open the door to the idea that a “book” is something different from the format in which it comes to us. It may be bound, electronic, or audible, and sometimes electronic text and audible rendering may be merged. Another recent article, “Who Has Time to Read? And Where? And on What?” makes the point that our idea of “book” is different than the physical means of engaging an author’s work. I’ve seen some impressive, as well as humorous arguments that listening to audiobooks may even be a superior experience to reading books.

Perhaps there is an analogy with recorded music, for which there are Edison cylinders, 78’s, 45’s, and 33 long play albums, 8-track tapes, cassettes, CD’s, and digital downloads. All of these can be termed “albums” even though the form is different. [By the way, as a lover of vinyl, I remember recordings of books, plays of Shakespeare, etc. on vinyl. Audiobooks have been around for awhile!]

So this begs the question of how we define “book”. Dictionary.com offers these two primary definitions:

  1. a handwritten or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers.
  2. a work of fiction or nonfiction in an electronic format:

The traditional definition here and in several other dictionaries understands book as “codex.” But with the inclusion of electronic formats, the definition appears to be becoming more fluid. I wonder if the day is coming when a more fluid definition of book might exists along the lines of “an authored work of fiction or nonfiction, consisting of words and images conveyed one or more forms of media including printed and bound form, electronic, audio, or audio-visual formats.”

It seems we are a season where these thrive side by side, reflecting different lifestyles and preferences of readers and listeners of books. Just as there is a revival of vinyl and those who prefer its sound, so there are some who still love the printed and bound book, and love to see them on physical shelves. That is one type of aesthetic, which includes the joys of wandering bookstores, booksales, and libraries. For others, e-books fit a lifestyle on the go, a space-conscious living situation, or just the idea of “living lightly.” A third aesthetic may value the spoken word, whether spoken, or even read aloud, perhaps communally, or perhaps during one’s commute or workout in the gym.

The question remains, which one article asks, “who has time to read?” That’s one for another post. My book is waiting…

 

A Usability Test for Books?

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment

Just read a great blog by Chris Hilton on Reading in Bed. He focuses on something that is almost never discussed in book reviews–the usability of a book. His post focuses on a problem he runs into when reading in bed–that some books are so printed and bound that the inner margin is so narrow that the full text can only be read with two hands holding the book wide open. And for some books, this destroys their binding, which means you might as well throw it away after reading. I fully sympathize.

This is one of the reasons I like reading an eReader at bed time. I can set the text big enough that I can even read without glasses, it can be held in one hand, and it shuts itself off if I fall asleep and is easily set on my night table.

But Hilton has a point that there is a beauty in well-made books that is part of the reading pleasure which is one of the reason I still like physical books. Here are my own thoughts on what makes for a beautifully made physical book, in addition to Mr. Hilton’s great insight about inner margins:

1. Wide margins: These leave room for marginalia–those notes that reflect the dialogue between author and reader. Not everyone likes to do that but a book without margins makes this difficult.

2. Covers: While we don’t judge books by their covers, a great cover that fits the book enhances the experience. I’m reading a book on holy war with a cover that shows an ancient sword against a dark red background. Totally fits!

3. Print size and line spacing: Some of this depends on the kind of font used–some are more readable than others but obviously larger point sizes and line spacing make reading easier than tiny print and a page full of text that it seems to take forever to read.

4. Binding: A book that lies easily in your hand and stays open by itself is idea. This usually implies a better quality hardbound book.

5. Paper: Acid free paper that falls and conforms easily to the pages beneath is best. It is neither fragile nor rigid.

6. Size and weight: This is probably a trade-off with some of the other factors, particularly numbers 1 and 3. Generally, the more comfortably a book can be held and carried, the more likely it is to be read with pleasure.

7. Illustrations and graphics: Some books are remembered for their illustrations as much as for their text. I think of books like Thurber’s collections of stories with his line drawings, or the illustrations in Winnie the Pooh.

I’ve mentioned these in another context, but the hardbound Library of America series typify many of these qualities and even include their own book ribbons.

What am I missing? What makes a physical book usable and a delight to hold and read for you?