There’s a delightful video on the New Yorker magazine website about some of the terms used by sellers of antiquarian books.

The accompanying article is Anatomy of a Book. Here’s the video:

As it happens, I’m reading a fascinating book at the moment called Book Parts (Amazon associate link). I will be reviewing that on these pages. It doesn’t discuss the terminology used by booksellers to describe books but, as the name implies, analyses the function and history of the various elements of a typical book, such as dust jacket, table of contents, and other aspects.

While we’re on the subject of old books, you might enjoy the quintessentially English podcast Slightly Foxed, which I wrote about in an article entitled What to listen to while digging holes.