Though I love books about books, I was apprehensive about this one. It seemed a bit too academic for me. I was wrong. It is an engaging and fascinating read.
Emma Smith makes her intention clear at the outset, "Books are important" she says in the Introduction:Magic books. She backs it up by outlining how it is due to the simplistic resilient technology surviving for more than a millennium that has had a great impact to our thinking, ways of life and culture. It is these lines that hooked me and I knew I had to read more of it.
The book is divided into chapters with catchy titles, allowing the reader to dip in and out easily. Smith begins with charting the history of books, tracing its journey through war times, it's elevated status as christmas gifts and later accessories and finding it movement across continents. She also explores how books become classics, symbolise religions, democracy and influence.
The chapter on Choose your adventure books focusses on the interactive nature of the written word, how the Empire writes back before finally getting down to answering "What is a book".
My favourite bit was when Smith discusses the Gutenberg printing as the first step to printing books on a mass level. A big shout to how Smith highlights the colonialism that altered historical perspective and how she uses the climate movie Day After Tomorrow to illustrate her point.
A great read, an engaging narrative. Like Val McDermid says on the cover, "If you love books, you'll love Portable Magic."
So true!
Emma Smith makes her intention clear at the outset, "Books are important" she says in the Introduction:Magic books. She backs it up by outlining how it is due to the simplistic resilient technology surviving for more than a millennium that has had a great impact to our thinking, ways of life and culture. It is these lines that hooked me and I knew I had to read more of it.
The book is divided into chapters with catchy titles, allowing the reader to dip in and out easily. Smith begins with charting the history of books, tracing its journey through war times, it's elevated status as christmas gifts and later accessories and finding it movement across continents. She also explores how books become classics, symbolise religions, democracy and influence.
The chapter on Choose your adventure books focusses on the interactive nature of the written word, how the Empire writes back before finally getting down to answering "What is a book".
My favourite bit was when Smith discusses the Gutenberg printing as the first step to printing books on a mass level. A big shout to how Smith highlights the colonialism that altered historical perspective and how she uses the climate movie Day After Tomorrow to illustrate her point.
A great read, an engaging narrative. Like Val McDermid says on the cover, "If you love books, you'll love Portable Magic."
So true!