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Online book fairs are being held in Vietnam to replace traditional offline events that have been shelved owing to the COVID-19 crisis. This study aims to explore book consumers’ perceptions regarding digital book fairs and their evaluation of the first-ever national online book fair held in Vietnam. In-depth interviews were conducted to obtain insights from people who had attended the online book event. The findings provide acceptance of and support for the organization of digital book fairs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Attendees generally appreciated the convenience of the national online book fair and the promotional programmes offered by various publishers and distributors. Furthermore, some attendees enjoyed the novelty of the event and the feeling of being included in the reading community. Nevertheless, most of the attendees highlighted several limitations, especially the lack of social and face-to-face interaction. These findings have implications for online book fair organizers, publishers, and book distributors alike.

According to Homi Bhabha, hybridity in the context of identity where two cultures or languages collide is a third space where new views and stances can emerge. I explored the concept of this third space by writing a novel in English, which is my second language, instead of in my mother tongue, Slovenian. I investigated the effects of language switch on my choice of subject matter, my writing process, and my perception of my work and myself as a writer and as a person. I examined language-related challenges of writing in my second language, the benefits of a new insight a second language offers, and how multilingualism leads to a more fluid identity and a change in perspective.

Launched in 1999, at a time of radical change for the publishing industry, Persephone Books has become a successful independent publisher of neglected female authors mainly from the 20th-century inter-war period. Publishing being an industry primarily shaped by the differential distribution of symbolic and economic capital (Bourdieu, ‘The Market for Symbolic Goods’, in The Rules of Art, Polity Press, 1996, p. 9), competing principles of cultural legitimacy within an increasingly commercial climate clarify the position of modern publishing at the intersection of culture and commerce (Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production, Columbia University Press, 1993, p. 27). This article explores how Persephone Books’ understated assertion of publishing’s ‘middle ground’ and commitment to the historically reviled ‘middlebrow’ genre have reconciled the perennial tension between culture and commerce to create a thriving yet unintentional publishing brand.

This essay examines a handwritten refugee ballad in a handmade codex, using both to illuminate some of the lingering blind spots in national philology and world literature. The ballad, printed in full after the essay, belongs to the Karamanli Christians of Anatolia, who spoke Turkish but wrote it in the Greek alphabet. Uprooted from Turkey by the Greco-Turkish Population Exchange of 1923, Karamanli refugees were scattered across Greece and North America, where they were often excluded from publishing. Poets like the author of the present ballad, Agathangelos, turned instead to more accessible manuscript formats. I interpret Agathangelos's ballad and codex as a catalog, documenting and preserving his lost homeland, where multiple scriptworlds, languages, and confessions coexisted. I conclude by calling for a people’s history of the book to decentralize and democratize world literature’s political economy (tacitly accepted as print capitalism), foregrounding textual networks that have remained illegible to our discipline.

From tweets to GIFs to memes, social media is awash in bite-sized texts that are perfect for quick, instantaneous consumption and viral sharing. Mixed up in the raucous frenzy of social media, however, are excerpts that originate from print media: quotations from novelists, poets, philosophers, and other authors. The book, far from extinct, has nevertheless become "fragmented," circulating in new ways on digital networks.This study examines the phenomenon of quotations—especially those from books—on the social network Tumblr. Its fundamental question is whether the fragmentation of the book represents a threat to traditional forms of attentive, immersive engagement with long-form texts.The study reports on three research phases, each with distinct methods and data. The first phase, relying on qualitative and quantitative discourse analysis, examined the role of books and traditionally print-based discourses within the context of Tumblr. The second employed ethnographic data techniques, questionnaires and interviews, to uncover Tumblr users' purposes for sharing quotes from books as well as the ways that quoting connects to these users' broader experiences of literacy. The third phase used computational linguistics to distinguish between different types of quotations and to illuminate the features that contribute to "quotability."This study finds that quotation can be—though is not always—intertwined with traditional forms of reading and literate attention. Chapter 3 demonstrates that the quoting of books in particular is a fundamental part of the larger practice of quoting on Tumblr; it further illustrates some of the wide variety of quotations that circulate on this network, from misquotations attributed to famous authors to those quotes that are carefully annotated with bibliographic information, scholarly vocabulary, and other signs of deep familiarity with source texts. Chapter 4 reveals that, for those who quote from books on Tumblr, quoting is often not a form of distraction; rather it can deepen their experience of reading and lead them to discover new books. Yet quoting also serves more fundamental purposes of self-expression and self-care, functions that may be related to the fact that quoting is a starkly gendered (largely female) practice. Chapter 5 suggests that, while many quotations are indeed designed to be easily-decontextualized adages, others are specifically tailored to fulfill quoters' desires to express their intimate thoughts and feelings. Some quotes seem to be tailored to be appreciated by those with deep familiarity with the source text, though such quotations are less popular than easily-decontextualized ones. The fragmentation of the book does not fundamentally threaten traditional forms of reading, though the very purposes of reading are increasingly bound up with self-expression and self-care made possible through social media. The conclusion chapter considers the ramifications of these findings for media studies, the history of the book, and educational practice.

Following Peter Elbow’s work on ‘resonant voice’ or ‘presence’, this essay examines the seldom-explored resonance between a text and its writer in the moment of its creation. The essay asks what the boundaries and content of this space might look like, and how this knowledge might positively affect the creative product. It challenges the popular search for a writer’s ‘voice’, instead positing that each writer has a perpetually shifting internal plurality of voices, which unifies the constructivist and social constructionist views of the self. By arguing that the resonance between writer and writing is the experience of this plurality coming to harmony, the essay posits that to create such a resonance involves a balance of simultaneously relinquishing control to the internal choir and learning how to better conduct it.

‘My Africa Reads’ is a memoir that looks back at my reading history. The ‘Preamble’ identifies authors who influenced my worldview during my secondary and tertiary education in the UK and who remained my companions during the first decade of my return to Nigeria. From this immersion in Eurocentric literature, the memoir progresses to my encounter with postcolonial African literature in the collective setting of the Africa Book Group (ABG), which I joined in 2002 and led from 2014 to 2018. The memoir looks at authors and literature that the international women of ABG have engaged with, and at meetings at which guest experts spoke on aspects of African studies and affairs. It highlights the power of ABG—a shared reading experience—to advance that part of my cultural liberation facilitated by good postcolonial literature and open, unconstrained discussions with other women.

Publishing is often characterized by instinctive decision-making with little attempt to apply a scientific methodology to an obvious question: why does one book sell and another not? The thesis of this paper is that, although there are aspects of a book’s publication history that one cannot predict in advance, one can know what these aspects are. A simple syllogism underlies the argument: if human behaviour can be understood through psychology and if book-buying is a form of behaviour, the motivations for book-buying can also be understood through psychology. This approach can be applied historically, through recourse to sales data, to trace the fossils of books published long ago and so discover the type and strength of the motivations that once drove people to buy them. History demonstrates that these motivations, once properly framed, can be understood to be influenced by context. Book-buying motivations also appear cyclically. This leads to a discussion of why it is that one book rather than another may satisfy a motivation and therefore sell better than another. Using the concept of prisms combining to reflect a motivational ‘light’, we see that books exist as constructs of a finite range of elements that cohere (or not) in a multiplicative way to enhance or diminish their effectiveness. Evidence is also given for what appears to be a universal ratio that dictates a natural entropy in the effectiveness of these prismatic elements.

In this article the authors analyse narratives of the ‘agents’ associated with book publishing in Latvia, instrumentalizing the Bourdieusian theoretical framework of habitus–capital–field in order to understand the particulars of power relationships in the national book publishing field. Based on the results of the narrative analysis, authors conclude that power relationships in book publishing in Latvia have historically shifted during periods when major social transformations have taken place in other fields of the social world (e.g. political, economic) and echoed in the publishing field in the form of altered conditions. Depending on each agent’s position in the field, these changes have meant that values and meanings linked with the practice of publishing have either had to be adjusted or been significantly disruptive.

This paper outlines the experience of four universities that collaborated on a pre-arrival shared reading project, the Big Read, in 2018/2019. They did so primarily to promote student engagement and retention and also to ease the transition into higher education, particularly for first-generation students, to promote staff connectedness, and to provide a USP (unique selling point) for their institution. The paper covers all the associated processes, from isolating the respective aims of the collaborators to the choosing and sharing of a single agreed title. In analysing the outcomes, recommendations are made for future cross-institutional projects of this kind.

To sell a novel as socially relevant, the book cover, prefaces, and other paratext can help convey why readers should care and how the story should be read. But relevance can expire as society moves on. Reprints of groundbreaking classics that no longer engage contemporary concerns adapt their paratext to reach new readers, often by emphasizing the book’s historical and/or literary position. This article examines paratextual strategies across time and space for three Scandinavian novels with exceptional influence. Enlightenment-promoting Niels Klim’s Underground Travels (1741) was the region’s first novel; Hunger (1890) is praised by many as the world’s first modernist novel; and The Man on the Balcony (1967) became the progenitor of Nordic Noir. Early paratext used anonymity, false veracity, or documentary elements to sell relevance. But with commercial success, and temporal and geographical distance, paratext became increasingly author focused and self-referential, at times all but ignoring the author’s intent for the story.

As Children’s Laureate 2013–2015, Malorie Blackman raised awareness of the lack of racial diversity in children’s fiction. Underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in fiction and the publishing industry’s infrastructure is a severe problem in the world of children’s books, as illuminated by research into the publishing environment of the past 15 years, and the books populating current bestseller charts. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of economic and symbolic capital is important to understanding how diversity is highlighted in the contemporary literary field, but his polarization of the different form of capital as motivation for creating art is reductive. Storytelling is about combining voices and experiences, and publishers can, and should, combine economic and symbolic motivations in publishing diverse fiction for children. Publishing a book because it will be successful economically and because it is the right thing to do are not mutually exclusive; in publishing diverse children’s fiction, both motives can and should inspire us.

This essay is based on a talk the author gave at the By the Book conference in Florence in June 2019. It examines the power dynamics in the Italian publishing world from the perspective of a fiction writer. Writing and publishing are two completely different worlds that can be differently approached. What’s the point of writing? Should writers write about what they know, or about what they do not know? Can publishing be put off? What’s the role of literary agents in the publishing process? The author’s answers to these questions are based on her personal experience.

This two-part article is a sequel to a two-part paper published in Logos in 2008–2009. It provides a round-up of the current situation of the book industry in Africa today (primarily that in English-speaking sub-Saharan Africa), together with a brief review of the activities of the various organizations that have supported African publishing over the years. Part 1 examines the persistent failure of African governments to support their book industries and public libraries in a tangible and positive fashion. It reviews the current status of book development councils in Africa, the unsatisfactory progress in establishing national book policies, the challenges of generating book industry data, and the opportunities presented to African publishers by the new digital environment. An Appendix provides a list of conferences, meetings, and seminars on publishing and book development held in Africa between 1968 and 2019. Part 2 of this article will appear in Logos, 30 (4).

This article discusses changes in the materiality of textbooks by examining several examples of primarily Slovene textbooks from various periods. By focusing on their spread design rather than technical aspects (e.g., length, weight, and format), one may infer that their materiality changed with the development of printing technologies and publishing skills. Based on the assumption that textbook visuality is a field of meaning that requires different bodily movements, postures, and engagement with the physical environment to produce cognitive processing, this article sheds light on how the body adapts to the changed materiality of digital textbooks. Numerous micro-movements in a long string of procedures are required in a digital textbook ecosystem. All the participants should be aware of the different demands and properties of the digital textbook ecosystem. Therefore, further empirical research is needed.

Originally, literary prizes were restricted to the world of academia, but since the 19th century they have grown to become commercial events in the publishing calendar. This article looks at the role of the literary prize as an agent of change by focusing on two prominent prizes in the United Kingdom: the Booker and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. By analysing data from archive material held at Oxford Brookes University, this article argues that the founding of the Women’s Prize highlighted an issue with the Booker and promoted discussion around that issue, and that the Booker reacted positively in the years after the introduction of a competing literary prize.

This article considers how markers of place function differently in the print book ecosystem vs. the ebook ecosystem, using books associated with Australia and Western Australia as a case study. Although book historians have mostly failed to engage with ebooks as subject matter, they have considered in some detail the way in which markers of place function in the print book ecosystem. By surveying the scholarly output of book historians working with mapping technologies, it is possible to conclude that, in the print book ecosystem, there exist a handful of markers identifying the following categories: places associated with a book’s setting, its author, its publication, its purchase, and its marketing and publicity. The latter three markers look substantially different in the ebook ecosystem than in the print book ecosystem. Furthermore, in the ebook ecosystem, changes to these three markers can mediate setting and author as markers of place.

Seeking to improve student enrolment, engagement, and retention, Kingston University began a pre-arrival shared reading scheme in 2014–2015, sending a free book to every student about to start at the university and making copies available to staff in all roles and departments across the institution. A number of associated events were organized and outcomes monitored through a variety of project-specific and institutional metrics. Continuing with the scheme in 2015–2016, Kingston University and Edinburgh Napier University joined together as research partners. Edinburgh Napier, having participated in the process of choosing a book for all to read, made the same single title available to their students and staff. In this paper the processes and outcomes of the collaboration are reported, including the differences in project implementation in the two institutions and what they learned from each other. Recommendations are made for how universities can work together on projects of mutual desirability, pointing out particular associated sensitivities, in this case when managing a long-distance collaboration, and what can be learned for the future.

During the American hardcover revolution, in the 1980s and 1990s, Alfred A. Knopf established itself as the leading publishing house in book design. Founded in New York in 1915, Knopf has been the recipient of many literary prizes and in 1999 was awarded the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) Corporate Leadership Award, a prize that recognizes forward-thinking organizations that have been instrumental in the advancement of design by applying the highest standards. Knopf made a name for itself using quality in design along with quality in writing as a strategy for its long-lasting success. One of the main people responsible for this success has been the graphic designer Chip Kidd, one of the most renowed American book cover designers alive. Kidd started working at Knopf in 1986 and soon became the go-to designer for well-known writers such as Michael Crichton, Haruki Murakami, and James Ellroy. His work shows an intuitive understanding of the narrative and a unique and deep connection between text and paratext. Kidd stretches the visual boundaries between words and visuals, asking readers to bridge the gap between what they read and what they see. His covers leave the image open to interpretation; this deliberate lack of definition engages contemporary readers more than traditional covers do. This article illustrates, through the analysis of a selection of the most significant covers designed by Kidd, how his work at Knopf helped create a revolution and shape a new visual language in American book design.

In 2016, the National Book Council, the ISBN agency for Malta, released its ISBN database online. A few months later, the ISBN database was enhanced with an open-data feature that enables users to download the search results in a single file with read and write access. The database includes all the ISBN data of Malta except for some records and data that were lost during the period before 2013 when paper data storage of ISBN records was the common practice. The implementation of an ISBN electronic database now ensures that no data go missing and facilitates the preservation of metadata. As added value, the open-data system provides access to all of the ISBN records as listed in the database, which means that virtually all of the ISBN data elements can be downloaded from the database. Researchers, publishers, authors, and booksellers all stand to benefit from this open ISBN data system.

This article presents strategies on how small academic libraries—where instructional efforts are often limited to information literacy initiatives—can expand their pedagogical efforts by way of book history instruction by developing a small but capable rare books collection used solely as a teaching tool. Discussed are methods for locating hidden collections and the removal of materials from general stacks to rare book shelving, the advantages and limitations of the one-shot instructional session, methods of earning administrative buy-in that can lead to small rare book acquisitions budgets, and promotional and collaborative strategies to build university-wide support. The article concludes with strategies on how to develop a three-credit undergraduate course on book history taught by a librarian using a rare books teaching collection acquired by modest expenditure and careful selection.

S. Brent Plate's introductory essay orients the reader to the academic move toward material text studies, a wide range of research questions and pedagogical practices that includes attention to the history of the book, book technologies, the social habits of readership especially in relation to print culture, and issues raised in media studies about differences in verbal communication. This introduction is followed by a series of one-page Teaching Tactics that prompt students to ask about the material conditions in and through which scriptures acquire meaning. Students are challenged to become aware of the sensorial nature of sacred texts, and of communication itself. They touch, see, and hear in new ways, learning with their bodies.

This paper describes the conservation treatment at the Monastery of St Catherine, Sinai of an illuminated manuscript preserved in an important but severely damaged sixteenth-century Greek-style Sinai binding. The conservation treatment aimed to restore functionality to this binding with minimum intervention enabling the important manuscript to travel to an exhibition. The repair techniques evolved during treatment as the two conservators studied and used the techniques of the original binder. The repair included the partial in situ re-sewing of the manuscript, working around and supplementing the original sewing, and reattaching the wooden bookboards. The primary endbands were repaired to preserve and support the unique secondary metal-thread endbands and a new method was devised to repair an interlaced clasp-strap. The planning, as well as the working methods and techniques described, highlight new avenues both for the conservation of Byzantine manuscripts and for future conservation at this important library.

In the last couple of years, the CELJ keynote addresses have featured speakers who have discussed some aspect of the advancing electronic world of scholarship. This year, I thought it might be profitable to bring what we know of the book's long history to bear on its future - electronic or otherwise. I looked for two leading experts with deep knowledge in the history of the book and editing to look back, as it were, on the future of the book. The academic journal, of course, is one permutation of the category ‘book.’ The idea of the ‘book,’ - or ‘a book’ - and of reading practices that give thela ‘book’ its life in the world, has become a fascinating topic at this historical moment when the technological possibilities of electronic formats have opened up the traditional limitations of the printed book and stimulated much consideration of what a book is or might become. Is the electronic context changing what a ‘book’ is? Or is it simply giving us a new vantage point from which to observe that it has never been quite so clear what we mean by ‘book’? And to what degree have we successfully negotiated the book in its newer guises? David Greetham approaches these issues through the lens of Foucault's notion of the ‘author,’ trying from several theoretical paths to attempt a spacious conceptualization of ‘book.’ George Bornstein then challenges editors, publishers, and scholars to address, in practical and outward-looking terms, the various (especially economic) pressures that are significantly limiting our ambitions for the electronic ‘book.’

Amadio Arboleda addresses the idea of a globalized world in which the distribution of scholarship could theoretically unite all nations. Arboleda argues that, in fact, European and North American researchers, scholars, and publishers commonly demonstrate the ‘Gutenberg syndrome,’ in which the history of the book, the world of publishing, and scholarship in general are viewed in terms of Western principles and practices. International communication is thus dominated by Western standards and largely excludes or over-looks centuries of Eastern traditions. Until a greater effort among Western scholars and publishers is made to understand the cultural history of Asian countries and to develop truly international research practices and resources, a balanced and equal exchange of knowledge and information around the world will remain difficult.

Scholars who study the history of the book examine scribal and print culture, and theirinfluence on the development and transmission of culture. Academics worldwide have established organizations dedicated to defining thefield and to developing curriculums, research centres, and lecture forums in this nascent field. Onesuchorganization is the Penn State Center for the History of the Book, established by the author in 1992. The centre aims to teach the discipline, to establish a publication program, and tofurther promote thefield in theuniversity andgeneral communities through lectures, exhibits, and conferences. The centre's activities in studying book history also serve to illuminate the current debate over whether the book as we know it is an endangered species in an increasingly electronic environment.

The report of Alva's arrival as Philip II's captain-general and the announcement that all those would be prosecuted who had had any connection with the troubles of 1566 led to a massive emigration from the Netherlands. The leader of the Dutch Revolt, William of Orange, withdrew to Germany in order to lead the rebellion from Dillenburg. In order to do this he chose a highly modern medium: the printing press, which was to play a decisive role in arousing the population to armed resistance against Spanish rule. As his collaborator in the propaganda campaign the Prince selected another fugitive, the town pensionary of Antwerp Jacob van Wesenbeke. The latter soon proved immensely active: in 1568 and 1569, on the orders and at the

The research proposes to assess the impact and consequences that changing the handwriting to printed was in the sixteenth century, especially in the Protestant Reformation, and how this contributed to the spread of the printed book. Printing with movable type, Gutenberg spread, greatly influenced the printing of books. One of the factors that contributed to the success of this new technology was new support for printing, paper. This new book is now on paper, is printed in unimaginable quantities and in a short time, from the book manuscript on parchment. Against this backdrop, the Protestant Reformation effectively has its beginning. The reformers, as anyone used to this new service and support to spread their ideas. This research proposes to study this issue related to the impact it had on the cultural and religious life of the sixteenth century. A imprensa de tipos móveis, difundida por Gutenberg, contribuiu decisivamente para produção de livros em grande escala, influenciada principalmente pelo novo suporte de impressão, o papel. Desta união, surge o livro impresso, que a partir deste momento é produzido em grandes quantidades em um curto espaço de tempo, em relação ao livro manuscrito. É neste cenário que a Reforma Protestante tem efetivamente seu início. A pesquisa aborda como os dois maiores expoentes da Reforma Protestante, Lutero e Calvino, se beneficiaram desta nova tecnologia e suporte, e ao mesmo tempo demonstra que, ao se utilizarem esta tecnologia, acabaram contribuindo para a disseminação e aceitação da imprensa e seu produto principal, o livro impresso.

This chapter considers the distribution of books reviving the liberal arts among the educated Norwegian population. Although its curriculum remained somewhat limited, this preparatory system helped mould the book world of the educated layer of the early modern population. This book, an explanation of Genesis 1, covers themes from natural science and history, including the creation of the world, astronomy, names of countries in Europe, and lists of animals, plants, metals and so forth, topics that belonged to the quadrivium. The artes legacy attested in the book collections of the schoolmasters Monrad and Jensen is also evident in collections belonging to clerics. Calepino's dictionary, first published in 1502, had the longest lifespan of any dictionary in the early modern period; by 1785, this work had gone through at least 150 editions. The content of the book collection suggests that Londemann was not very interested in theology.Keywords: books; Genesis 1; Jensen; liberal arts; Londemann; Monrad; Norwegian population

With the expansion of the eighteenth-century book market, more people were able to acquire a more varied range of books. This participation in the market was the result of a general rise in both financial capability and reading ability within a broad section of the population. Many individuals were able to acquire on the Norwegian book market works that were not of the more standard religious type; esoteric literature, for instance, circulated among the learned classes. Material that was patently entertaining was also available, typified both by an increasing number of novels as well as by traditional storybooks that remained classics. One should also note the increased presence of travel accounts in late eighteenth-century upper-middle-class libraries, works that were valued by book collectors and read for entertainment, but that also provided their readers with access to an ever-expanding world, whether fictional or not.Keywords: book collections; eighteenth-century book collections; entertainment; esoteric literature; Norwegian book market; travel literature