Wednesday, May 19, 2010

A Book Lover's Treasure


The Oxford Companion to the Book includes two volumes (housed in a beautiful slipcase) that cover the history of the book from ancient to modern times, but also the history of manuscripts, printing, libraries, collecting, bookselling, editing and even e-books.
There are over 5,000 listings in the A-Z reference section and short definitions are given for terms such as blad, conger, rectos and breviary. Well known printers, publishers, authors, illustrators and librarians are also listed. In addition there are 50 essays on topics as diverse as “The European Medieval Book” “Paper”, “Children’s Books”, “The History of the Book in Germany” and “The History of Illustration and its Technologies”. The scope of these essays is truly international and they are accompanied by almost 200 b&w illustrations.
It’s easy to lose yourself in these books for many hours at a time and you’ll learn lots of fascinating facts about books and the publishing industry. Any bibli0phile would love this set. At one Dewey Diva event someone suggested that this would make a fantastic gift for a retiring librarian.

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