Books: A Living History by Martyn Lyons (2011)

There's a bit of an excuse which can accompany books of this kind, which goes something like "Oh, well, after all, it's a coffee table book...". I have to say I don't think that holds a lot of water ultimately, though I'll give it a bit of distance on that account. The text is the text, really, regardless of whether or not it is illustrated, when it comes down to it. First to the good stuff: and that is a load of interesting facts. All sorts of stuff from what a codex is to new discoveries of genres like emblem books. And because my knowledge of the early era of bookmaking is patchy, I was an easy, though wary, convert. The illustrations are gloriously clear and rich with impact, as one would expect from such serious practitioners as Thames and Hudson. There were a couple of little causes for concern early on - a tendency to generalisation that suited the flow of the text, despite being not particularly accurate, and an example of a confidence-denting malapropism: such-and-such was the provenance of a particular group, rather than their province. As the book progressed the sweeping statements continued quietly and I got used to them, employing the doubtful coffee table book reasoning. But the progress of time also brought on the modern era, which I know a bit more about. To hear mentioned that 'Pearson' brought out cheap paperback fiction in the wake of Penguin was a bit much I have to say. I've no doubt that C. Arthur Pearson, small publisher of mainly practical handbooks and scouting and guiding material, may have dribbled out a couple of sixpence novels at some point or other, but back then is a far cry from the subsequent multi-conglomerated goliath that Pearson became, and I'm sure they barely caused a ripple in publishing circles. So, not untrue probably, but almost definitely overstated. And on a different level, to hear that 'Young people...when they do read books they often listen to music at the same time' is actually very funny and delightfully dufferish, and serves to illustrate the kind of generalisations that are peppered throughout. I wonder what the real percentage is of young people who do that? Along with a miscaptioned illustration, some questionable sociological extrapolations, and a redundant word in the title (Living in what sense?), these sum up the bad stuff. The good wins out, overall; not absolutely convincingly, but sometimes it takes a while to fully sink in - I may yet realise how many small fascinating facts are now at my fingertips courtesy of Mr Lyons.