Catchwords & sigal

On 2007-10-11, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

[PTD]
I believe very few books are sold bound in France; people are expected
to have them bound by their choice of bookbinder, so those hints are
still entirely necessary.
[AF]
I've spent quite a bit of time in French bookshops over the past
twenty years and all the books (as in the USA and the UK) are sold
ready-to-read. I've never noticed an unusal density of bookbinders'
shops in France either.

I suspect that as late as the 1960s paperbacks were sold with the
intention that the buyer might have them rebound (as hardbacks,
perhaps). I've bought a few secondhand books from that time (or a bit
earlier) that still had uncut signatures and fairly loose bindings
(for paperbacks).

(The ones I'm talking about were sold bound, just not brilliantly bound.)

Is that what you had in mind?
[PTD]
Yes. Likewise with German scholarly books.

I can't be sure about German scholarly books, but this has certainly
not the case in normal French or German bookshops or French academic
bookshops since 1989 (and probably earlier than that).


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