登入
選單
返回
Google圖書搜尋
Portable Magic
Emma Smith
其他書名
A History of Books and Their Readers
出版
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
, 2022-11-15
主題
Literary Collections / Essays
Literary Criticism / Books & Reading
Literary Criticism / Comparative Literature
ISBN
1524749109
9781524749101
URL
http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=yytfEAAAQBAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
EBook
SAMPLE
註釋
A history of one of humankind’s most resilient and influential technologies over the past millennium—the book. Revelatory and entertaining in equal measure,
Portable Magic
will charm and challenge literature lovers of all kinds as it illuminates the transformative power and eternal appeal of the written word.
Stephen King once said that books are “a uniquely portable magic.” Here, Emma Smith takes readers on a literary adventure that spans centuries and circles the globe to uncover the reasons behind our obsession with this captivating object.
From disrupting the Western myth that the Gutenberg Press was the original printing project, to the decorative gift books that radicalized women to join the anti-slavery movement, to paperbacks being weaponized during World War II, to a book made entirely of plastic-wrapped slices of American cheese,
Portable Magic
explores how, when, and why books became so iconic. It’s not just the content within a book that compels; it’s the physical material itself, what Smith calls “bookhood”: the smell, the feel of the pages, the margins to scribble in, the illustrations on the jacket, its solid heft. Every book is designed to influence our reading experience—to enchant, enrage, delight, and disturb us—and our longstanding love affair with books in turn has had direct, momentous consequences across time.