"Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers" by Emma Smith: Review by Rachael Rhine Milliard

Abstract

Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers by Emma Smith is a wonderful look at the use of the object of the book in human history. It opens with the allegory of “The Master and the Pupil,” where the magician leaves the powerful spell book out and the young apprentice, in reading it, causes problems because he does not understand or respect the book’s power. Books, in all their glorious bookhood, Smith argues, “have agency” (2022, 11).