As an ardent bibliophile I knew from the moment I saw the cover and the title that I would want to read this. I’ve always been seduced by the magic of the written word and the weight of a book in my hand. This remains my first love even though I have many electronic options now. Finding an eclectic selection including Mein Kampf and Gerald Durrell in the first few pages only confirmed my wish to read this. And I did enjoy it but just not as much as I thought I would. The author says that each chapter is self-contained and may be read in any order. However, I am a traditionalist and I started at the beginning and finished at the end. I very soon realised that I needed pictures. There are chapters on book production, on milestones in publishing history, on ethics around censorship, on books as self publicity. And there is a lot that requires a visual aid. There is a chapter ‘about brand management’ or ‘ shelfies’ as Ms Smith calls them. This is not quite ‘books do furnish a room’ but more ‘what do the books you pose with say about you whether in a portrait, in a photograph, or in a zoom background. I had to go to Wikipedia to find the portrait of Anne Clifford and the photograph of Marilyn Monroe which were under discussion in an early chapter. Would have loved colour plates.. and even more so in the chapters showing the various techniques of book formatting and design. this is halfway between a book for the casual reader and a more academic essay and would I think have benefited from the conventions of the latter. Falling between two stools, it might have difficulty in finding a readership. So I enjoyed it, but found it less than the sum of its parts