The Book-Makers

A brilliant time-machine of a book. Each chapter feels like a party packed with old friends and new, and Smyth plays the gregarious host with aplomb -- Joseph Hone, author of The Book Forger Fascinating ... Should teach even serious book-nerds a heap of forgotten and precious information about the making of books. Adam Smyth’s lively prose and human touch puts to rest the idea that book-talk has to be dry and dull. On the contrary! The development of printing, papermaking, and book distribution, for example, are told through the exploits of Wynkyn de Worde, Fourdrinier and Mudie in chapters as full of surprises as any novel -- David Bellos, author of The Novel of the Century I relished Adam Smyth's The Book-Makers: bursting with fascinating details and vividly-drawn characters, its stories will delight any book lover, and Smyth delivers them with an erudite brio -- Roland Allen, author of The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper Amazing. From typeface to papermaking to a whole new-to-me democratic world of book interaction like commonplacing and zines, this book is a soul-expanding celebration of the human spirit -- Martin Latham, author of The Bookseller's Tale