The Book on the Booshelf

Henry PETROSKI, call no. 022.409 PET

I picked up this book because I was in the computer section and someone shelved it by mistake. But Petroski I liked because I read his previous books The Evolution of Useful Things

This book however is not about books but about bookshelves and how they came to be. He suggests that the development of books and bookshelves were concurrent. Which seems a rather obvious thing, but then have we ever thought of life without bookshelves? Have we ever thought a about bookshevles at all?

I'm reading this slowly and concurrently with Search. More on this later

Continued:
I took a break reading this book because I had too many books to read and had to return it when it was due. In the meantime I read Petroski's other book about Engineering Marvels which is more or less about bridges. (see other review)

Then I returned to this and can say this much. The man loves bridges. Even a book shelf is like a bridge. He even says it: "... designing a solid-looking bookshelf is essentially no different from that of designing a bridge". (p 81, 1999. Vintage Books. NY)

So.. I wondered how far is he going to go with bookshelf. Incredibly far. He talked about the evolution of manuscripts (a codex is a flat form of manuscript as opposed to scrolls as in papyrus). Once condices developed, the need for shelves began. At first books could be stored in chests and most advisable since these were precious things, encased in leather bindings and embedded with precious jewels etc. The kind of things you see in Epics. From there, books were read on lecterns, and then as more books were produced storage grew to be a big problem.

Interesting facts too that books up to the late 19th century were not bound at booksellers. One could buy manuscripts and have them bounded separately. Hence the profession of book binding.

The book goes far, from shelves to libraries, to stacks, to design of stacks, movable shelves. I must say a few of the chapters towards the end lost me as I have not seen some of these libraries or stacking systems.

A worthwhile book to read and keep, on the bookshelf.

Definitely makes me look at Ikea's billy bookcases from a different perspective from now on.