The materiality of the book

We take a book , open it, leaf through it, and prepare to immerse ourselves in the promise of expanding our lives that reading represents.

If we pay attention to what the Dictionary of the Spanish language tells us, a book is 'a scientific, literary or any other work of sufficient length to form a volume , which may appear in print or on another medium'.

Today we're not going to focus on the content , but on the container, on the materiality of the book . And we're going to do so because a whole family of beautiful words revolves around it.

Like almost everything in our language, so vast in time and space, this bookish vocabulary is marked by variety and richness .

Readers of this Eñe , who I assume are book lovers, will enjoy learning about these words. Our protagonist will then be that other meaning of the word "book" : "A collection of many sheets of paper or other similar material that, when bound, form a volume."

Let's look at our book face to face. The first thing we see is the cover , also called the front cover or front cover . If the face is the mirror of the soul , the cover is the mirror of the book 's soul .

The back of the cover , where we usually look for more information about its contents , is called the back cover . If the book is properly placed on a shelf, what we see is its spine , almost like the back of a living being.

The spine connects the cover and the back cover; on its outside, the label appears, usually the title of the work and the author's name. Inside, the pages that make up the book are sewn or glued together.

Thanks to the hinges , the union of each of the covers, front and back, with the spine , we can open the front and back doors to that universe that awaits us between the pages of the book .

The part opposite the spine , formed by the edges of each page , is called the edge . Some are even elaborately decorated . How often do book lovers run their fingers along the edge in anticipation of the pleasure that awaits us with reading ?

In paperback books, the cover usually has two flaps that close inward. In hardcovers , however, we notice that the endpapers connect the front and back covers to the inside of the book . And yes, the body of the pages is called the inside , like our stomach or the inside of a cigar.

There is a guard glued to the inside of the covers and there are also two others, which are not glued, which we call the flying guard , the front one , and the counter guard , the back one.

Hardcover books also like to be dressed up with a dust jacket , also called a shirt , cape, or waistcoat , as if the book were dressing up for a gala event. And if that weren't enough, books sometimes even come with a sash , a narrow strip of paper that promotes the edition with editorial information or reviews of the work.

The book is in our hands, still almost unopened. A whole adventure awaits us when we learn more about its interior design and, especially, when we begin reading .

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