Book Essays #7: Details
Book Essay is a series of narrative/descriptive essays on the parts of a book. From the spine to the back cover, each essay will convey my thoughts (largely subjective) on the components of each part of a book—one essay for a book part. These essays will create the awareness that a book is made of many parts, and show how these parts, put together, make the beauty that a book is. I hope that these musings get us into a conversation in the comments. For me, it is a setup that makes me dig deeper to understand the parts of a book. Therefore, these essays will not be preceded by extensive research on the book part. You can be sure to find errors in factual details. But let me be wrong, this one time, since I would do research afterwards. (But flag down my errors, please!) Worry not, the essays are numbered!
Dear Fellow,
The following is an excerpt from a George Orwell book:
“Meanwhile I shall send you a copy of the book” —even O’Brien, Winston noticed, seemed to pronounce the words as though they were in italics— “Goldstein’s book, you understand, as soon as possible.”1
Take note, this is not part of O’Brien’s statement: “. . . even O’Brien, Winston noticed, seemed to pronounce the words as though they were in italics . . .”
Elsewhere, in the same book, Orwell wrote:
“A heavy black volume, amateurishly bound, with no name or title on the cover. The print also looked slightly irregular. The pages were worn at the edges, and fell apart easily, as though the book had passed through many hands. The inscription on the title-page ran . . .”2
Recall, that I wrote on these in previous parts of this series: cover and title page. If anything, you should have seen that all I have written about in previous essays is not of concern or interest to book designers only. Neither is it only for writers like Orwell. It is something every reader should know, too. Why? The first answer is that it helps you, a reader, better appreciate the books you read.
Making a book is a delicate process, I am tempted to liken it to childbirth.
Other details are carefully considered in producing a book. It ranges from writing a number in words or digits to placing the author’s bio in the preliminary pages or the back matter. Making a book is a delicate process, I am tempted to liken it to childbirth.
The “italics” Orwell referred to in the excerpt at the beginning of this piece is in accord with what the style guides say. For example, The Turabian Style manual (which I use to format this newsletter) says:
“You may italicize for emphasis words that are not italicized in the original, but you must indicate the change with the notation italics mine or emphasis added, place either in the quotation or in its citation.”3
The “italics” in the passage at the beginning of this piece is to say that O’Brien emphasised the book. As if he was telling Winston that the book is important, and that he should make sure he gets the book. To support the recommendation by the Turabian Style manual, consider this excerpt from The Christian Writer’s Manual of Style:
“Bloggers often emphasize entire phrases, sentences, or paragraphs with italic, all caps, alternate fonts, underscoring, or even different colors. These devices seldom transfer smoothly into books. All caps look like shouting, and large chunks of italic are hard to read. Alternate fonts can look like mistakes, and color printing is not an option in most books. Underscoring was once used to show emphasis in typewritten manuscripts, but now it is primarily used online to show that a word or phrase is a hyperlink.
“As someone once said of the overuse of emphasis, “That’s not writing; that’s gesticulating.” The craft of writing involves arranging words and phrases in such a way as to emphasize the important points without depending on typographic peculiarities. Such peculiarities are usually distracting, causing the reader to focus less on the content and more on the form. In the worst cases, such typography can cause confusion. Stick with italic as the most immediately recognized method of showing emphasis.”4
Italics serve other purposes in a text—to indicate the title of movies, books, or radio shows. They are also used to indicate a word that is from a foreign language in a sentence, for example:
The usual phrase was ena tuainu-iai, “I wanted to eat.”5
Other tiny details are considered when formatting or preparing a book for the press, and this is carefully done to give the reader a great reading experience. And like I have said earlier, I am sharing this for writers to be aware of their responsibility to their readers in terms of style, and for readers, of the aesthetics in text, and so appreciate books even more. I hope this despatch was helpful.
To learn more about other tiny details considered in publishing any written work, check out writing style manuals when next you visit any writer’s library, a public library, or a bookstore. You should see that writing and publishing is a kind of art done with great care and consideration for the reader. I hope this helps your reading experience, henceforth.
Your LetterMan,
Tongjal, W. N.
Check out the previous essays:
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (Wrights Lane, London: Penguin Books, 1949), 184—5.
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 191.
Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers, 8th ed., ed. by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory C. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013), chapter 25.
Robert Hudson, The Christian Writer’s Manual of Style, 4th ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), ebook.
Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers, 8th ed.
Whoa!
There was a contemplation I had some three months back. I was praising the invention of italics. It blew my mind how a word or phrase can be shaded or toned in a way by it. This thought came after I thought on the beauty of voice inflection (I was teaching a communication course).
The point is, I looked for someone to share with me the other side of the use of italics (it does almost the same thing voice inflection does in spoken communication). Now here I have it.
Thank you for this timely caution.
Cheerio!