Our choice of books says a lot about us – and our relationships with books as objects can be complex. At a conference taking place today (28 June 2014), Dr Victoria Mills (Faculty of English) will discuss how book collecting may have afforded an expression for marginalised male identities in the late Victorian period.
When the first e-reader appeared, printed books were declared dead. It hasn't happened – and there are no signs that it will.The brittle plastic of an e-reader, however colourful the cover, just doesn't have the physical presence of a printed volume. Nor can a click on the 'buy now' button on a well-known website replicate a lunch hour spent browsing in a bookshop or rummaging through the contents of a market stall piled high with out-of-print treasures.