From the author of the highly praised The Pencil and The Evolution
of Useful Things comes another captivating history of the seemingly
mundane: the book and its storage.
Most of us take for granted that our books are vertical on our shelves
with the spines facing out, but Henry Petroski, inveterately curious
engineer, didn't. As a result, readers are guided along the astonishing
evolution from papyrus scrolls boxed at Alexandria to upright books
shelved at the Library of Congress. Unimpeachably researched, enviably
written, and charmed with anecdotes from Seneca to Samuel Pepys to a
nineteenth-century bibliophile who had to climb over his books to get
into bed, The Book on the Bookshelf is indispensable for anyone who
loves books.