And a question from a reader of this blog:
"I notice that to read the titles on the spines I have to tilt my head to the left, rather than to the right. All the books on my bookshelf require that I tilt my head to the right. Is this a standard difference between British and American books?"
I don't see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang there...
ReplyDeleteI notice that to read the titles on the spines I have to tilt my head to the left, rather than to the right. All the books on my bookshelf require that I tilt my head to the right. Is this a standard difference between British and American books?
ReplyDeleteLet's find out. Question bumped up to the post.
ReplyDeleteI know that German books always require the tilt to the left...
ReplyDeletewhy are there two copies of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"?
ReplyDeleteI'm in an American/English household so I took a quick look at our bookshelves. The vast majority of both require rightward head tilting. There might be an exception or two but I didn't notice any.
ReplyDelete"why are there two copies of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"?"
ReplyDeleteI don't know. Perhaps one is the regular first edition and the other is the limited edition first edition.
are all the books right side up? ;)or just set so that the spines align for reading...
ReplyDeleteThey are definitely right side up.. just look at the author names.
ReplyDeleteThat is odd though. Must have something to do with driving on the wrong side of the road ;)
I have some Spanish and German books that require a tilt to the left. Maybe it's a European thing.
ReplyDeleteYes, it does seem to be a difference between British and American publishers (you can even see it from publishers who print in both Commonwealth countries and the US with covers whose spines are opposite to each other). I first noticed it when I went overseas to teach the first time. That was in Pakistan, and then I saw the same thing in India. The explanation from my British associates was that you can see the title when the book is lying face up, but when it's face down on a table, the spine then is "right side up" so you can easily read it. My response, as an American, was how does that help you when you have a pile of books?
ReplyDeleteBTW, I noted in an earlier comment that here in Shanghai, where I now live, we were able to easily get TYWKIWDBI. However, it is now blocked here and I have to read it at school, where we are routed through Hong Kong.
Thanks for the note, Pat. My Google Analytics shows only 30 visits this past month from all of the P.R.C., of which 19 came from Shanghai, 6 from Beijing, and one each from Suzhou, Chengzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm pretty effectively blocked there.
Also...I notice the books in the photo seem to all be from the same publisher, and I expect they'd have a standard way of doing things within a publishing house, wouldn't they? (irrespective of any national standard)
ReplyDeleteword verification: rophen. Hm.
I'm from the UK and I went to a book market on London's South Bank yesterday. I can say with confidence that I needed a head-tilt to the right to read the titles as I walked around.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it used to be the case with old books, but it doesn't seem to be true any more.
The two Ernest Hemmingway books in my bag were printed in the UK and require a tilt to the right to read.
In Italy, we tilt right.
ReplyDeleteFrench books always tilt to the left.
ReplyDeleteTilting to the right makes sense. If a book is on a table with the cover up, the spine is readable.
Tiling to the left makes sense. If the books are on a shelve, reading from the left side of the shelve to the right side is like reading to bottom.
Ahum.