I've been racing through Sidney E. Berger's The Dictionary of the Book: A Glossary for Book Collectors, Booksellers, Librarians, and Others from cover to cover as if it was one of those unputdownable, page-turning blockbusters. This lively, wide-ranging, finely detailed glossary is high entertainment for bibliophiles of every stripe. Berger is a Renaissance bookman, at once scholar, collector, bibliographer, rare book-librarian, paper historian, curator, hand press printer and papermaker. Like John Carter before him, whose venerable ABC for Book Collectors often serves as the inspiration for this book collector's glossary, Berger is personal, witty and opinionated in the way he writes up these entries. We badly needed not just an update to Carter's ABC, but a fresh book-collecting glossary that is more in-depth, comprehensive, and scholarly--and that's exactly what Sidney Berger's passionate dictionary is.Berger means this for the use of scholars and bibliophiles alike. He wears his scholarship lightly and informally, making the whole task of writing and producing this book look easy, but a decade of work went into it, and of course, a lifetime of being a devout bibliophile.

Two reference works are now indispensable to the bibliophile: the Oxford Companion to the Book in two volumes, and now this portable one volume by Sidney Berger. I have been, since getting hold of his Dictionary of The Book, reaching for it so many times, I can't imagine how I--or any bibliophile--got along without it so far.