Descriptive Bibliography

Practice to judge a book by its cover

This is a copy of “Textbooks for New Employees 3. The Glossary of Terms Used in Publishing, 4^thedition” published by Japan Book Publishers Association. As the title suggests, this book is marketed for publishing companies and their new employees. I bought this in a bookstore in Jimbocho, Tokyo’s Fleet Street.

At first glance, this book looks like a homemade textbook that a high school teacher would make, if not for the barcodes and ISBN code that signal it is a commodity. The gray cover has only words and no fancy design. Low contrast between black text in the gray background makes this book very elusive in a bookshelf.

The binding is very simple, too. A dozen sheets of A4 paper are folded in half and collated to make a quire, then several quires are stacked and glued to the paper spine.

The size of this book is A5 (21.10 x 14.80 x 0.45 cm, or 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.2 in), a common paper size in Japan, and it has 80 pages. Because of its lightness, this book is portable, but a little too wide to fit in a pocket of a business suit. Adding blank pages as space for notetaking would enhance its portability.

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