The Physicality of Books
What do you most like about the book as a physical object?
Intro · Likes · Rituals · Necessity
Examples · Memories · Bios
Javier A. Martinez
I enjoy holding the book, turning the pages, interacting physically with the text. I also like the way the pages smell, in new books and in old books. The smell evokes a memory process. Holding the book in your hands also personalized the experience. Have you ever read on-line comics? They’re interesting, but actually holding the comic, bag and boarding it to include it in your collection, seeing them lined all in a row, this is all a source of great satisfaction to me. The same holds for books: having a complete “works of” collection makes me feel good. I don’t think the effect would be the same if I had an e-copy.
Farah Mendlesohn
The book moves at my speed. My computer doesn’t navigate as fast as I can. Weight, comfort, ability to provide pictures, words, and art.
Michael Moorcock
Depends on the book, surely? I greatly enjoy individually designed, well-illustrated, well-made books. I have a nostalgic affection for crummy old paperbacks. Books, shall we say, are like people. You enjoy them for different qualities.
h3. Cheryl Morgan
It is easy to read. I’d happily go for e-books if they were not so inconvenient and painful on the eyes.
Darren Nash
Everything. Not very helpful, I know, but the feel of the jacket, the smell (I always used to smell my books when I was growing up—the smell of adventure and knowledge… ), the portability, just… everything.
Richard Eoin Nash
Its sculptural aspects. It has less to do with the reading experience, which I think can be quite various and more to do with its designed objecthood. A book as a physical object is like a lamp or a pen or a chair, a combination of functionality and aesthetics, generating the same opportunities for displacements as are afforded by any given fetish object. Given that few books are necessary from a functional standpoint, there is a huge amount of space for desire in the acquisition of a book.
Vera Nazarian
A physical book is a multi-sensory time capsule. Not only is it a thing of wood pulp and dyes that can be tested in the laboratory by some future curious connoisseur, but it is a snapshot of a human mindset taken at a certain moment in history and representative of not only one human being, the author, but likely the intended audience.
Ian Nichols
Its sensuality. A book is tangible, and the paper picks up scents, finger marks, stains and dust. It is, in itself, a history, as well as a text.
Lance Olsen
The heft in hand. The way the pages collect to the left, showing me I’m always getting somewhere important.
Milorad Pavić
A supposed similarity to the house. In Amsterdam a friend of mine once showed me an object on the table—something like a small house with a staircase on the façade, door and windows on the first floor. It was made of iron and it was the cover of his new book. I was fascinated.
Justina Robson
The crisp, new pages opening up. Or, if it’s a used book, the old telltale pages opening up, revealing all that print, thumbprints, bits of sandwich and dead bugs etc… I also like hardbacks although I’m too cheap to buy them and I like the old covers on ancient first editions of things which have got really worn with use and age, books that have been around the block a few times.
