Odd Words from the Book World
There is a New Yorker video making the rounds this week, and it’s terrific. It features quick chats with a cast of characters, each a bonified book expert or rare book dealer, while they discuss their favorite vocabulary and odd words from within the rare book world. It’s just a few minutes long and it’s worth a watch if you know the name Nicholas Basbanes and have books like Keith Houston’s The Book or Rosenberg’s and Marcowitz’s The Care and Feeding of Books Old and New around the house.
A few of my favorite words are:
- gilt fillet
- yapped edges
- rebacked
- thumb soiling
- and, deckled edges.
I do not know when this short video first appeared, but I recognize everyone from their appearance in the 2020 documentary film The Booksellers. I really enjoyed that movie. It did a great job of capturing New York, the Antiquarian Book Fair, and the plight of the rare and used book market, as well as the dealers featured. D.W. Young’s documentary is worth renting if not owning outright.
A favorite term of mine that was not mentioned is:
“book dummy (noun): a book-sized object, often with a note attached, placed on a shelf to mark the spot where a book was removed to tell others where the book went as well as fill in the gap and support the books standing upright to the left and right of it. So those books stay standing straight and don’t lean.”
I’ve been known to use a wood block, a brick, and a box.
Plus, ‘book dummy’ is just how I feel most days! Maybe… that should have been the name for this site!
