I welcome comments, and will reply (if a reply is called for).
To leave a comment just click on the little bubble next to the date, below the title of the post. Or click on the title of the post to “select” that post, and scroll to the bottom of it where you will be invited to comment.
The number in the bubble indicates the number of comments there are. To read them, just click the bubble-button.
Making Book 
Richard
Just thought you might be interested in this from the Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-english-the-full-list?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits
I’ve read 26/100 from that list.
Your perfect bound Faulkner can be restored with double fan adhesive binding. I admire your blog very much and would be willing to do that gratis as a token of my appreciation for all you have blogged.
Steve
Thank you for the kind offer and comment. I’ll just persevere with the slightly damaged copy: there is a sort of charm to a collapsing book, and I know that I’ll always read it carefully. Wouldn’t you need to grind something off the spine anyway? There’s not a huge gutter as it is. Your comment reminds me that ultra fan/double fan is one binding style I’ve not covered in my series on binding styles. Thank you for that too: I’ll aim to remedy the situation soon.
I read the passage in these pages about uncut books. In 2003 I found an uncut copy of the 1924 Hilaire Belloc The Road. In a pleasant second hand bookshop in Brunswick Heads. Which is in northern New South Wales. Which is a bit of Australia.
It took me weeks to decide what to do with the only uncut book I had ever seen let alone owned. Finally I wondered what Belloc would have said. I thought of the fourth wall comments in The Path to Rome and cut the whole thing in one go so that I would not have regrets.
Excellent book too.
Sounds like the right choice. After all you’d never have known it was a good book if you’d not cut the pages.
No need to explain NSW to me! I went to a school where the punishment of choice was drawing maps which had to have 50 names, five colors and five rivers. Australia was a great favorite as you could easily get 50 names down the eastern coast. (I guess left-handers had a different favorite, but that never seemed to come up.) I must have drawn a map of Australia at least 100 times. I regret to have to admit that Brunswick Heads was not one of the names I’d write.
Thanks for the response. I made the mistake of looking at ‘comments’ and can see a few years of distraction there. Maggs and the cardboard box of spare signed James Joyce indeed. And Napoleon. And Canning.
Dear Richard — I wonder what you make of the recent cock-up by John Murray, who recently produced lexicographer Susie Dent’s new book from what she calls a “pre-edited text”. https://twitter.com/susie_dent/status/1311595857880457217
I think I can see what she means — it’s presumably the text submitted to the publisher before it got edited — but I wonder what kind of production process involves flowing a complete file into an InDesign template after typesetting and proof reading and the going straight to print? Not something I can imagine doing myself.
Best wishes — Charles Foster https://plentyoftasteblog.com/
Particularly ironic that the title of the book is Word Perfect!
But mistakes do tend to happen at random and unexpected intervals. I don’t of course know the details of the cock-up, but I’d speculate it resulted from a file naming error. They (probably) do have the final edited file but it wasn’t labelled properly so someone sent an old version off to the printer. Once the printer has the file, because they are no doubt under pressure to get the book out as fast as possible, it’s off to the races.
It’s tempting to see this as a result of working from home — but I don’t think that would have anything to do with it. After all we all worked off computers even when we were together in the office. Someone just sent the wrong file to the printer: obviously you know to take care about such things, but attention occasionally slips. A bigger error, like sending the file for a totally different book, would probably have been noticed, but the printer isn’t looking to “edit” the file so if it’s the right book, they’ll assume it’s the right file. I can’t imagine that John Murray/Hachette don’t have file naming protocols in place: someone just did it wrong. Errors of this sort are distressingly common — blame the human element — they just usually tend to be less publicly visible.
Ach — proof reading error of my own: line 8 should read “then going straight to print”. Sorry!
No need to apologize to me! I’m all to often a victim of this too. Sort of backs up my explanation of the book’s typos: stuff happens.
Thanks for reading.
That wasn’t intentional! — all too often
Thanks for your response, Richard. I agree that it was probably the result of a numbering error on the PDF sequence or something like that. It’s Ms Dent’s use of the phrase “pre-edited text” that made me think that she is referring to an early version done in Word (or another WP package) before the text was flowed into InD. But maybe she is referring to an uncorrected proof which was sent to her as a PDF.
I believe that an organised numbering sequence is vital in the production process — when I send an author a new proof I give it a new number, even if I have only made a single correction.
Not sure I really understand what pre-edited might mean. It sounds like it ought to mean totally unedited — i.e. the original file submitted by the author. (Can one not expect an author writing a book called “Word Perfect” to be a little bit careful in typing?) Maybe that was what was eventually flowed into the pagination system. Whatever the detailed reason, I’d be surprised if someone hasn’t lost their job over this!
Thank you so much for your great blog. I see you’re more active in this time of Covid and those of us spending time at home appreciate it. Here’s a little item about various types of papers you might find interesting:
https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2018/08/27/paper-made-from-straw-rye-wheat-barley-oats-peas-beans-lentils-and-corn/
Thanks for this link. I’m drafting a post right now!
[…] Comments […]
Hi, Richard. My wife and I are featured in the current issue of “Fine Books and Collections” magazine, in “How I Got Started” (page 88). We are getting up there in age and wish to solicit thoughts from you and your readers on what collectors do with their books as they prepare to “shuffle off this mortal coil”. We own 3,500 fine, carefully curated books, including 1,200 on Tibet, Himalayas, and Buddhism, over 100 books by and about CG Jung (and other Bollingen titles), hundreds of art books, many first editions and rarities, and more. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.
Wow. This is a tough one. I always fondly imagine the New York Public Library driving a van up to my apartment building — but of course that’s not going to happen.
The trouble with collecting stuff is that you collect what you love, and part of the point is the joy of finding another piece of the whole. Unless you have kin similarly “afflicted” then I suspect you are going to have to face the fact that the collection represents a “problem” to them, which leads to the probability that the collection is ultimately sold off, probably piecemeal. But of course that’s not terrible — lots of other collectors can have the satisfaction of adding this or that book to their own collection. However, given the Tibet/Himalayan/Buddhist theme you might find a university department or library that was interested in having the entire collection. Or you might ask the Rubin Museum if they have any interest or suggestions. Do they take small ads in “Fine Books and Collections” or any other such magazines? If you do decide to try finding a library I’d suggest an early start as it may take a while to locate a recipient. People can surely be expected to wait.
In 2015 I did a post called “Digital Inheritance” (https://rhollick.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/digital-inheritance/), which isn’t directly relevant of course.
Hi, Richard,
Thanks for your insight into this situation. I guess I’ll just have to “meditate” on it and see what answer I come up with. 🙂
Thanks, Ken
________________________________