Portable Magic by Emma Smith is a collection of essays about the transformative power of reading. Smith, an English professor, shares her insights on various literary works and how they have impacted her life and the lives of others. From analyzing the meaning behind Jane Austen's novels to discussing the power of storytelling in the Harry Potter series, each essay is thought-provoking and inspiring. The book is a must-read for book lovers and for anyone who wants to understand the impact of literature on the human experience.

Thank you to netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this title.

I read the first 10% of this book and found it to be a bit slow, so I skimmed the rest of the book and nothing caught my attention. I think this is more of the kind of book you give as a gift and slowly read throughout the years rather than one you sit down and read in one sitting, which is my preference. Really really gorgeous cover, so props to the team that designed that. And I agree...books ARE magic. DNF this one tho.

If you're at all interested in book history, this is a great volume to pick up. Smith explores books not as "platonic writing" but as "pragmatic books," which is a great phrase for what I generally and (unpoetically) call the study of books as cultural objects. This is no clear-cut, chronological history of books but more a collection of essays about the different aspects of publishing, consumption, and social trends, everything from the propagandist context of the Gutenberg Bible's printing to shelfies through the centuries and how we use books to shape narratives about ourselves. Fascinating and delightful. My thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Portable Magic.

I love to read. Those words seem inadequate to describe how much I love to read, but it's true. I'd rather read than watch a movie sometimes. I read pretty much anywhere; on my commute, on line at the bank or supermarket, at the breakfast table I read the back of the cereal box, during lunch, if I finish my book on my commute, I read the advertisements in the subway car.

I love to read, learn and discover new things.

The author's essays on what makes a book, its potency and magic, how it influences religions, political events, even ourselves, is a fascinating and thought provoking read.

The tone of the writing was drier than I expected, with a few jokes thrown in for levity, but I learned so much, not least of all that printed material was long established before Gutenberg.

I really like the word 'bookhood,' just one of many words I picked up from reading this.

Ultimately, a book changes the reader, inspires and affects you in a myriad of ways, and after you've finished it and pass it on to someone else to share, all the better.

What a wonderful book!! Smith takes us on a journey through time as seen through various bookish events. Immensely interesting events were chosen and it is delightful to witness the changes in reading tastes and styles over time. Highly recommended title!

Well researched and detailed narratives. This book is the Holy Grail for every Bibliophile. It's not a fast read, it's a bonified tell all about books.

“All books are magic. All books have agency and power in the real world, the power to summon demons and to dispatch them.”

I’m not the best of non-fiction readers; I tend to get bogged down very easily if it’s not of the most narrative, easy-reading variety. I just prefer fiction. When I read, I want to get lost in a story. But, there are exceptions. I love books about books, and about how other people interact with books. That’s why I decided to pick up this book. Portable Magic is intellectually stimulating in the way that a very well written dissertation on an interesting topic is stimulating. It’s incredibly informative, and intriguing in a very erudite way, but it’s not exactly light reading. To be blunt, it’s painfully dense in places. I wish it had been a bit lighter and more anecdotal, but I do feel like I learned a lot during my time with it.

“We are all made up of the books we have loved and, more, of the books we have owned, gifted, studied, revered, lived by, lost, thrown aside, dusted, argued over, learned by heart, borrowed and never returned, failed to finish and used as doorstops…”

Portable Magic is all about the reader’s relationship with books, as both conveyances of ideas as well as objects in and of themselves. It dissects our collective love affair with books and looks at both the positive and negative connotations of that love. It also addresses and digs into the “interconnectedness of book form and book content,” as well as the “reciprocity and proximity of books and their readers, in the relationships that leave both parties changed.” In other words, it’s about the importance of books, inside and out, and how our relationship with books impacts not only us, but the books themselves.

“As books became part of human life, they began to change us. They do not simply reflect us, but shape us, turning us into the readers they would like to have.”

“…a book becomes a book in the hands of its readers. It is an interactive object. A book that is not handled and read is not really a book at all.”

One of the major points of this book is how wildly we overvalue books as objects. There have been people tried and giving wildly outlandish sentences for defacing books or book theft, to the point that their lives were forever ruined. That’s utterly senseless. A book is never more important than a person. But then others go to the opposite extreme, seeking to eradicate books that contain stories or ideas by which they feel threatened or offended. This eradication can range anywhere from censorship to book banning to the actual buying of books. I’m not going to say that these are equally wrong, because people are alive and books are inanimate, but books and the thoughts they house do deserve to be defended. A balance must be struck.

“Where men burn books / They will burn people also in the end.”

“Books last, and their long lives sometimes have unexpected consequences.”

The impact books have had on us, individually and collectively, over the ages is also discussed in depth in this book. Our impact on books is also addressed. We see how stories change as we do, and how stories change us. We see how books in form have changed with the time, and how we have adapted our technology to continue paying homage to the biblioforms we love. It’s a fascinating dichotomy with a variety of facets. We also see how readers interact with authors through not just the consumption of their work, but by annotating and even writing fan-fiction based on the work. Stories matter deeply to us and become part of our identity. The way our love of said stories impact the form that houses them is also interesting.

“The book-human relationship is reciprocal: if we are made up of books, books are made up of us. Books are deeply anthropomorphized.”

“…books are ordinary things that become special in the unpredictable and unique human connections they embody and extend. We all encounter rare and valuable books all the time.”

While I found a lot of food for thought in this book, it was not at all an easy read. It was dry, and dense, and overly erudite for a layman audience. I can see this being wonderfully well received in the academic world, but I’m not sure how well it will do among the general populace, of which I am one. I appreciated what I was learning, but I’m not sure how much of it will stick with me. The academic tone and voice made it a bit of a slog to get through, and I found myself fighting against and urge to skim. I’m glad to have read this, but I’m not sure it’s something I’ll ever revisit.

Unfortunately this one was not it for me. I know it’s non fiction but found it really hard to get into unfortunately!

The topic is interesting, intriguing, and whatnot but this book lover was terribly disillusioned by the choppy writing/sentences/paragraphs. My apologies.

Portable Magic by Emma Smith is a new exciting book.
In this book, Smith discusses how books came to be and their magic. They do this by discussing specific topics and books in each chapter, such as Gutenberg in one chapter, and book burnings in another. All of this equals a story about the physical book itself, rather than just the story within.
First of all, I really liked the idea of this book. There are many books that go over their history, or how they changed humanity, but there are few that are about the book as an object. I found this book very easy to read as well. Despite just being a series of essays, it was easy to understand and absorbing to read. Smith also adds some jokes in, to keep the book from being completely dry. I learned a lot of new things about books and their history, this is more snapshots into the history of books than a linear timeline. Lastly, I particularly like how the book can be read from beginning to end or used as a reference book. While many chapters reference another, they are each mostly self contained.
I would recommend this book to any book lover who wants a refreshing insight into book history.

Portable Magic explores pivotal moments in the history of the book. From various production techniques to the use of the book to promote ideologies, Portable Magic covers the biggest miletones of the book. While there are many interesting facts and tid-bits shared throughout, the relationship of reader to book is discussed the most. How this relationship formed and evolved over the centuries is detailed using the biggest moments to explore this transformation.

Well-researched and educational, Portable Magic will reveal that yes, books do have a special quality that can only be described as magic.

With November being the month of gratitude, here’s a title that celebrates something we’re grateful for at the library—books and reading. Using vivid prose, author Emma Smith whisks the reader through the storied history of the physical book, from the very earliest days of printing, to the acts of rebellion and protests that have been enacted on and inspired by books. This is a captivating read for folks who believe magic resides in both the content and the form of a book

I've read lots of books about books, but none that I'd recommend as readily as Portable Magic. Emma Smith managed to write an academic work that doesn't come across as stuffy or pedantic, which is a feat in and of itself, but on top of that she wrote a book about books that celebrates books without fetishizing them. And that, my friends, is what I found truly remarkable about this book.

Rather than navigating the history of the book chronologically, Smith takes a thematic approach in Portable Magic. The result is a work that can be read in virtually any order and still be comprehensible. However, I'd recommend that readers start at the beginning and read straight through, because the way that Smith segues from chapter to chapter is so perfectly seamless that it defies description. If you've ever listened to an album in which all of the tracks meld perfectly together without gaps, you'll know what reading this book was like. I particularly enjoyed this approach because I had a good time trying to anticipate the content of the next chapter based on how the one I was reading was wrapping up. I'm weird, I know, but I make no apologies.

If you love books, read this book. If you enjoy short, well-written academic works that will make you feel smarter for having read them, read this book. Just do it. Read this book.

Many thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the eARC of Portable Magic, provided in exchange for this review.

A spirited and informative history of books, Smith explores books as objects of power, as tools of colonialism, as centres of religions, and their place as an object of reverence in our societies. I was a little skeptical when I started reading this, like it was going to be about the joys of a print book, and in some ways it was, but in most ways, it explores the revolutionary ways the creation of books changed our world forever (and the colonial rewriting of the invention of the printing press).

Being a librarian, I tend to emphasize my interest is in information, and it just do happens we kept info in books for a really long time. This is a well-researched history (and even addresses my librarian stance!) on books, and one that will enrich my understanding of my work, even though I don’t have much to do with books there. This is well-written and accessible, and a must for anyone who likes books, politics, religion, history, and/or linguistics.