A pleasant surprise: "popular histories," especially when they deal with relatively specialised subjects, are often inane in subject-matter and pedestrian in style, but this one is intelligent, scholarly, and generally pretty readable. Of course, Petroski, with his historian's hat on, covers a lot of material that we as book-lovers are already likely to be familiar with, but he's still enough of an engineer to pose interesting, practical questions and make us look at the things we thought we knew in a new light.

Unlike many texts of this kind, he's careful not to generalise too much from his examples, and there are proper references and a bibliography, so you can follow up anything that looks particularly interesting. You will need to do some reference-chasing if you want to reproduce any of the book-storage systems he describes in your own library, as his editors evidently wouldn't let him put in any detailed scale plans or anything more than the most general dimensions. Probably just as well: I doubt if I could really fit Trinity College library into my living room...

As several others have pointed out, Petroski does have a tendency to repeat himself and to regale us with dullish anecdotes about his own adventures in libraries, but unless you read the whole thing through at a sitting, these foibles of age aren't really going to spoil your enjoyment of the book. Probably something to borrow rather than buy, but well worth dipping into. ( )

An interesting account of the history of bookshelves and how we use them. Well written, and is much easier to find and enjoy than Streeter's 'The Chained Library.' ( )

Realized my inner-book-nerd while reading this. This is not so much about what's in the book, more about how the book is constructed, shelved and shared. Despite savoring every page (and rereading the occasional chapter), still feel the need to reread. Totally not what I expected. ( )

I could marry this guy.

This book is about the evolution of book storage. Bookshelves and the way books sit on them might seem so obvious that the arrangment must have been in place since books came into existence, but not so. Petroski starts with storage of scrolls and goes right up through modern library storage methods. He explains how the changing nature and availability of books altered storage methods, and also how factors like electric lighting changed the arrangement of shelves in libraries and study areas.

At times (especially in the first chapter), the book seemed repetitive and filled with fluff that a good editor would have excised. However, Petroski is a good writer on the whole, and it is interesting to think about the factors that influence the design of something as commonplace as a bookshelf. I particularly enjoyed these lines: "I have known younger collectors especially who seemed to think of themselves as budding Librarians of Congress. These individuals never seem to discard any book, but rather build more cases as their accumulations grow." ( )