Lost in Thought, Part 1
Dear Reader,
I’ll be going through Lost in Thought these next several weeks as my second post for each week.
This is for a few reasons. One of them is that the Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA) will be hosting author Zena Hitz for an event this Tuesday, June 2, at 6 P.M. The event is technically for Wisconsin residents, but if you’re among my readers, consider yourself invited. The event is limited to the first 100 registrants, as it’s on Zoom. (And if you attend, you can get a copy of her book for 30% off.)
Another reason I’ve chosen Lost in Thought is that it’s a book that’s about the life of the mind, which means it connects to the reading life quite closely. (In Hitz’s estimation, the Venn diagram of those lives isn’t a single circle, which I appreciate.)
The biggest reason, though? Lost in Thought is a book person’s book. And on some level or another, I am a true bibliophile. I’m not the best bibliophile, the most selective bibliophile, or the most refined bibliophile. But my bibliophilia exists as an important part of my life, even if there are other media for organizing texts and reading them.
Bibliophilia matters for Hitz’s book because the cover itself is a delight for any book lover. Frankly, this is a cover that would be clunky in paperback, I think, but the hardbound is among the best covers I’ve ever seen.
I’ve already gushed about this cover elsewhere (should’ve saved those words…), but the cover designers deserve a bonus for this book jacket. Usually, I prefer the bare book to the dusk jacket, but not this time. My oh my.
First, there’s none of that horrendous material that so many book jackets are now made of, the kind that if a single person handles them gets an immediate fingerprint grease stain on them. Get rid of that shiny stupidity. No one wants a grease stain on their book. (Admittedly, it’s forced me to order every hardbound book with a shiny jacket from my local bookstore because they won’t hand me the grease smears that I’ve received from Amazon. And it’s not Amazon’s fault, in the narrow sense. Who designed these revolting decorations and considered them worthy of a reader? If I want to wear white gloves while reading a book, I’ll head back to the Bodleian and request a rare book.)
The material has a gravelly cardboard feel to it, with a sort of obvious I-am-a-book-jacket quality. If it weren’t for the beauty of its design, it’d seem the mere wrapping paper for a treasure within.
Of course, it is a cover that points to treasure within. The front cover is, essentially, a book shelf. Muted colors make up the books on the bookshelf, and they are placed on the shelf with the curious leans and tips and double-stacking that an active library exhibits.
Making matters just delightful is the author’s name, Zena Hitz, presented in all caps at the bottom—offering the eye a Z-bookended palindrome. It obviously isn’t a palindrome, but the capital Z on either side of four-letter first and last names makes for an imperfect symmetry that tricks the brain into imagining it otherwise. It’s the sort of design nonsense that would make one Stephen Booth smile.
The side continues the bookshelf, as the jacket wraps around the spine of the book. Now, you just see the author’s last name, title, and the big old P to represent Princeton University Press, the book’s publisher.
What’s interesting about the back is not the blurbs. (I’ll write about the blurbs for this book some other time, when I do a full piece on book blurbs.) What’s interesting is that the bookshelf has continued around the spine and ends with basically one fat book per shelf dangling over onto the back of the book. That dangling makes you want to roll the book back over to the front, where the full bookshelf is. It’s the weird visual incompleteness that inspires that roll back to the front.
And once you’re there, you might as well dive in.
Happy reading to me,
Kreigh
P.S. Yes, I’ll write about book covers more broadly down the road. I’ll simply note for now that this is one of the best hardbound book covers I’ve encountered.
P.P.S. This is also one of the best balanced books I’ve encountered. It’s the appropriate weight and thickness and really length and width. If my hands were the size of Giannis Antetokounmpo’s, I’d probably find it otherwise. But my hands are not so, and I can say that this is a book meant to be held and read. When I first saw this thing online, I thought it was more or less a decently done book. But once in hand, quite literally, I was and remain impressed.