Welcome to Litsy!

I love being married to a reader- our Friday date night is a trip to a bookstore, and then grabbing a coffee to read in companionable silence. Feeling ultra lucky tonight! #ReadingAboutReading #NewIn

The first time I saw a friend use a highlighter to mark passages in the novel they were reading I was flabbergasted; I didn‘t know people did that! It seemed somehow sacrilegious; to her I was overreacting. Such is the power of books. Some of us treat them with reverence, some like that favorite pair of jeans. Emma Smith dives deep into that relationship and more. It‘s insightful, entertaining, and highlighter-worthy (if that‘s your thing).

This was 💯 fascinating! Smith looks at the history of books from the macabre (books bound in human skin) to the totemic (books as talismans). She investigates the history of censorship, book burning, and challenges the Gutenberg as the first printer of books. I particularly liked the chapters on books as gifts and when she discussed various editions of books and how we ascribe value to them. She provides excellent examples for each point. #NFNov

Really enjoyed this audiobook about the history of books and readers. What‘s not to love?

Forgot to post my 'third time lucky' purchase from this last week - I'm just about over the embarrassment now! The duplicate books were Blurb Your Enthusiasm by Louise Willder and From Spare Oom to War Drobe by Katherine Langrish. I am currently obsessed with books about books!

Got my Penguin bookmarks platinum and ruby prizes today! I chose Portable Magic (which I'd been eyeing for a while) and Either/Or for #camplitsy

And a new notebook is always welcome in my house

Really enjoyed this -- hit the spot in terms of the exact kind of non-fiction I was looking for right now. It treats books as objects, so it's not discussing novels per se, but more people's habits surrounding books, how books have evolved and been used, etc.

And of course, it checks off a square for #BookSpinBingo, and was my #DoubleSpin book.

This cannot fail to delight any bookworm or even historian.
I thoroughly enjoyed this, it's just a veritable cornucopia of book facts and little nuggets of trivia and information.
Some of it can be very sensitive and contentious at times due to the topic matter, book burnings in Germany, the war years, modern demonstrations and book burning of banned books.
But also plenty of light hearted subjects too, books made of cheese, slices of meat etc.

This was at times such a quirky, fun, irreverent look at the book world, along the way we take in books made of cheese, famous book trials for obscenity, book vandals, books as art, high brow literature and "trash" reads.
Even the format of books, HB, PB, their bindings, the history of printing.
Then we have the more serious topics such as book burning by the Nazis and even modern book burning, human skin bindings etc.
A book treasure trove.

This is a book about Books as objects not about the subjects written inside any particular book. Portable Magic is different from other books on this subject because there are no photographs or illustrations of any of the books mentioned , as there often are in other books of this genre. This is good because the reader has to concentrate on the text rather than just skimming through and looking at the pictures.

#nonfiction