A fascinating history of bookbinding and printing. You may have to be fanatical about your books and book technology to fully enjoy it – but I certainly did.

There are plenty of vignettes and personalities on offer, alongside a deep understanding of the history that accepts the boundaries of what’s knowable. The value we place on certain books shifts with time, with Shakespeare’s First Folio simply being one amongst many when it is first printed. And the notion of canonical texts can be fluid, with several often entirely different editions of Hamlet to choose from, as well as an active sub-culture of after-market book repurposing ending in modern zines and found-media works.

The most fascinating aspect for me was the way that some books have been lost and are known only through commentaries on them that (perversely) survived – and some are known through having been cut-up and re-used as parts of the bindings of other books, for example to make covers essentially from papier mâché, from which they have been recovered during re-binding.

The style can be a bit annoying in places, a mispaced need for levity that comes across as far too heavy-handed and trite. But overall this is a great read, equally full of information and entertainment.

5/5. Finished Saturday 22 November, 2025.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)