"Books: A Living History" by Martyn Lyons

I picked this book up today, amazed to see a book on books in a front-and-center display at a local independent book seller. I had searched in vain for it the past few days at the local B&Ns. Anyway, it looks almost more like a coffee table book or objet d'art. I haven't taken mine out of the plastic it was wrapped in yet, but was just wondering if anyone else had read it and what they thought. (?)

I've read (and reviewed) it, and was pleasantly surprised to find the text quite well done. The images are beautiful (and they're not just the same stock images in every book like this, either), but the text is definitely also worth a read.

Thanks for pointing it out. My community has no book store at all now. But the library system has several copies.

>2 jbd1: Thanks for the heads-up. Enjoyed your review.

>2 jbd1: Thanks for the review. I'll be interested in comparing it with Alberto Manguel's History of Reading. I had seen Manguel discuss his book on Bernard Pivot's "Bouillon de Culture" TV program, and found that I HAD to buy the book--you know how that sometimes happens.

Slightly 'off topic' - the day's program had been about "reading," and one young French woman among Pivot's guests had created a job for herself as a reader who was hired by various people, only to experience years of difficulty getting the French bureaucracy to recognize/categorize her position for tax purposes.