Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers

Stephen King has referred to books as "uniquely portable magic," and this book is no exception. Portable Magic is a collection of encounters with books over the last millennium and more: from the 8th-century gospel buried with St. Cuthbert on the island of Lindisfarne to the Lithuanian language books smuggled into the Russian empire in the 19th century; from the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of books banned by the Catholic Church over three centuries to Marita, or the Folly of Love, the first work of fiction in English by an African writer (known only as A. Native) to the viral ten books that have stayed with you question that Facebook tallied across the world in 2014; from banned Lady Chatterley's Lover to the billions of copies produced of Mao's Little Red Book; from the Bay Psalm Book (the first book printed in North America) to the manuscript of the early medieval Icelandic sagas known as the Poetic Edda, repatriated from Denmark to Reykjavik in 1971.

Throughout, Smith argues that the materiality of the book is inseparable from its content; its smell, weight, cover illustration, associations, and provenance can exert a powerful influence on how we read it. Smith is not so much concerned with different types of books as she is with what we do to them and what we do with them, as companions, lovers, teachers, and priests. She considers, too, religious and spiritual books and the very idea of the book as sacred; the long history of readers and owners marking their books in singular ways; the book as weapon in military and ideological conflict; patterns of ownership and gifting across cultures; the ways in which books are invested with emotional connection by different networks of readers; and how the arrangement of books on a shelf can be startlingly revelatory.

Part deep history, part love story, global in its reach but grounded in the everyday, the familiar and the tactile, Portable Magic--like no other book about books--makes us look afresh at this marvelous thing that has become an indispensable part of our lives.