Following the advent of the printing press, the relationship between books and people slowly became something more akin to what we are familiar with now. The printing press allowed for faster production, standardized grammar, and the rise of credited authors, along with many other developments. With this, we see the emergence of the Book as a product and as a companion. More and more people are reading and collecting books, and so thus creates the start of the feverish book community.
Throughout chapter two of Borsuk’s, “The Book,” she discusses the beginnings of the marketability of the Book. While explaining incunabula, Borsuk notes that printed books were designed to look like illuminated manuscripts in which people already recognized and were familiar with. With these design choices, books became more trustworthy and slowly earned their place within homes since they were fashioned after liturgical codices. These new books were not made to be revolutionary so that they remain familiar for their new audience.
Later, Borsuk goes on to explain the process of bookbinding and the physical body of the book. As the book evolves into what we have today, there is an increased rise in book ownership. Books are no longer a communal object but rather a personal device. In the section, “The Body of the Book,” Borsuk writes, “These modes of claiming a book point to a moment when ownership determined aesthetics, before books became uniform, mass-produced commodities whose bodies bear the marks of manufacturing standards, marketing, and bookselling.” This is an interesting period where people were able to decorate and emboss their books to their liking. This reminded me of videos I have seen where people ‘destroy’ their books in order to rebind them with a new cover or add new endpapers. Most of the time in these videos, those books are often fashioned in a style that brings to mind old books. They are typically embossed with gold foiling and sometimes have gilded or painted pages. To me, this shows that the marketability of the Book is cyclical. The books of the past have progressed to where we are now, however we try to revert to old practices.
Furthermore, in the section, “The Intimate Book,” Borsuk notes, “At this point they became the intimate spaces we now expect them to be, whether guiding one through the stations of daily devotion or conveying ancient thought on the structure of tragedy. While we currently enjoy many different kinds of reading experiences, in Western culture “the book” is almost universally seen through this intimate lens.” Books have become a private affair, where the reader is now able to have their own conversations with the book. In this new, intimate manner, readers were able to interact with their books in a deeper way. They use marginalia to mark up their books and are encouraged to “engage more deeply with their books and turn them into private spaces for dialogue.” This shows that reading was developing into something deeper. Readers were able to have conversations with the author, who was able to be credited for their work when printing became mechanized. From Amaranth Borsuk’s “The Book” it is clear that readers have always had an intimate bond with books that has flourished over the centuries following the widespread availability of books.
