My hands, choosing a book to take to bed or
to the reading-desk, for the train or for a gift, consider the form as much as
the content. Depending on the occasion, depending on the place where I’ve
chosen to read, I prefer something small and cosy or ample and substantial.
Books declare themselves through their titles, their authors, their places in a
catalogue or on a bookshelf, the illustrations of their jackets; books also
declare themselves through their size. At different times in different places I
have come to expect certain books to look a certain way, and, as in all
fashions, these changing features fix a precise quality onto a book’s
definition. I judge a book by its covers; I judge a book by its shape.
A
History of Reading by Alberto Manguel, London,
Penguin, 2014, p.125
