The magic of books

 In Portable Magic (2022), Emma Smith writes about that little piece of magic that is called a book. It is partly a history of books and partly a collection of trivia about books.

She writes about why Marilyn Monroe liked to be photographed with books (right), especially intellectual books such as Ulysses; the moral questions involved in either publishing, selling or reading Hitler's Mein Kampf;  books bound with human skin, and book burning, among many other topics.

Sometimes she contradicts accepted wisdom. The Bible was not actually the first book Gutenberg printed on his printing press. Charles Dickens did not invent the modern Christmas with the publication of A Christmas Carol. More books are destroyed by those who publish them than by anyone else. (What did you think happened to the books the stores can't sell?)

Much of Smith's book is fascinating. Even more of it is deadly dull. One of the magical things about a book is that one is not required to read every word.