…and why you deserve some old-fashioned quality in your book collection.
In the Victorian era, when you bought, say, the latest novel by Mr. Dickens, it would be posted to you in a cheap disposable covering to protect the pages. As an aside, this lead to the invention of the Bradel binding, but we’ll return to that topic another time. You’d then take the pages to your friendly local bookbinder, and they’d bind it in your choice of leather, bookcloth, and marbled paper, with your preferred style of decoration. This is why it’s common for first editions of Dickens’s works, even if they were from the exact same printing, to look so different. This is what makes it hard to spot a valuable first edition Dickens just by perusing the shelves!
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have instant access to ‘content’ via tablet and smartphone, and mass production has made reading affordable to a larger population, especially through the paperback format. But at the end of the day, it’s all a little soulless, isn’t it? Your book is probably the same as everyone else’s, and your Kindle certainly is! Not only can nothing replace how it feels to hold an actual book in your hands, the whisper of the pages turning, the smell of the leather…but nothing is quite so satisfying as knowing the book you’re holding is truly yours – made for you and no one else.
My Catholic Library makes that whole experience available to you in the 21st Century. I believe the modern Catholic lady and gentleman are no less deserving of their own, personalised library! I don’t know if you’ve got the mahogany bookshelves and plush wing-back chair to go with your hand-crafted volume, but the book is a good start! And so, I cordially invite you to browse the shelves here at My Catholic Library and pick out something that’s just the way you like it.