Of the making of many books, and the pricing upwards of many books, there is no limit.

When it comes to possessing a book, like most bibliophiles I prefer a substantial stitched hardback. Especially if it is an important book. And because I just so enjoy handling a well bound book, printed on quality paper, where font and layout and editing and production standards each contribute to a book that is a joy to hold and behold, to handle and read. And if the price is halfway reasonable then here's my money. The book below is the hardback edition of George Herbert at £90 - I got it for half the price from a sensible bookseller in Cambridge. "A thing of beauty and a joy forever".

But I also want to write in praise of the well intentioned paperback. Sometimes the hardback is ridiculously expensive and impossible to justify - and there's no paperback edition. Take for example Susan Gillingham's Psalms Through the Centuries volume 1 - £57 and the second volume will be even more expensive. And no chance of a paperback version, despite the fact that this is a series of commentaries aimed at students! So either you borrow it from a library (if it has it), or from inter-library loan - but what if it's a book you want to read and refer to often, huh? Writing to the publisher of Gillingham's book to point out the unattainability of these prices for all but institutional libraries I received a courteous negative response, essentially the same as one I first encountered and learned to live with when I was twenty one and at University.

I still have an essay I did all those years ago on the hard to make case for the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy. I began with the disclaimer that much as I would like to establish the case for Mosaic authorship, the historical and textual evidence did not point that way. One of the most illuminating feedback comments I've ever had was pencilled in the margin, "Tough!" It was a hard response for a fragile young Evangelical, but one that has served me well - and I still have the essay. The lecturer was himself an agnostic who sympathised deeply with people of faith trying to re-negotiate the foundations of that faith by intellectual dialogue and critical thinking in what could seem a hostile environment.

The point is, the publisher's response for all its courteous explanations of why they couldn't afford to make the book affordable for individual purchasers, came down to that one word I learned to live with decades ago - "Tough!" Now there aren't many books I want to own that I'm not prepared to pay for, and do without other things to buy them. Choices about disposable income are real giveaway clues to our ethics, stewardship, taste, and peculiar but likeable daftness. But even I can't bring myself to spend £115 on, for example, the second volume of Michael Watts The Dissenters, a magisterial history that is simply unmatched in the subject field. The first volume was issued in both hardback and paperback - but not the second. Tough!

And likewise Carol Newsom's The Book of Job A Contest of Moral Imaginations at £66 - but a book of great originality, penetrative in its insight into how this magnificent text interprets us and our world, and our human brokenness and longing for wholeness, before we ever get near an interpretation of it. So at £66, "Tough!" But it has just been published at £13.99 in an Oxford Paperback. The lesson being, sometimes you can't get all you want - I'm still waiting for Gillingham on the Psalms to be affordable, and Watts Dissenters to not need a mortgage preceded by a credit check - so, "tough". But now and again life has unlooked for blessing - and something you want is not only affordable, but a bargain at twice the price - as is Newsom's work on Job, in paperback.

For those interested, Newsom's commentary on Job in the New Interpreter's Bible represents along with Sam Balentine's Smyth and Helwys volume on Job, the finest exegetical conversation on Job I know. And with Newsom bound in the same volume as Clinton McCann's commentary on Psalms, that NIB volume costing around £40 is simply gold at the price of lead. I exaggerate - but only very slightly.

Comments

[Ronnie Hall]

Completely agree about the price of books, particularly the CUP... Anyway I really fancied the Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology but wasn't paying £99.75 for it. Lucky for me that I got it from a bookseller in Nottingham for £11. I would have got it cheaper than that on Amazon marketplace (God bless Amazon Marketplace). Never mind Jim, we'll all be using Kindle wireless devices instead of books soon enough.

[Brodie]

JIm - a number of us students at NC have put our books on an on-line library. That way if the library does not have the book we want, and we can't afford, or do not wish to buy it, we can look at each others libraries and borrow from each other.

[Jim Gordon]

Now Ronnie. A Kindle wireless device is precisely that - a device. A book it ain't. It's a high-tech chalk slate! OK Kidding. People said the first codex, then the printing press, were 'devices' and wouldn't catch on. So when you get your kindle come and give me a demo.

Brodie, that's an arrangement right out of Acts and the all things in common principle. We actually do this in College as a staff - and some of the students are at present using about a dozen of my books with the faithful promise that they will do unto other people's books only what those other people would do themselves. So no hgighlights, folded corners, underlinings, breaking the back to photocopy, reading in the bath......

As another principle if there is an expensive abooks several want, why not club together and buy it for shared use - that's the principle behind some of the working people's libraries of the 19th and 20th Centuries. All of which are good compromises - but not the same as being able to say 'my' book. Which may be one of the essential but culpable strands of self indulgence woven through the psyche of the bibliophile.

[angela almond]

I so agree with all the above [except Kindles - I am not sure I shall ever catch on to them] There is something durable about a hardback, paperbacks always seem ephemeral - and true bibliophiles always seem to prefer the former. I visited Chartwell, Churchill's house in Kent, with my kids when they were quite young, and in his livbrary one said "Mummy, look! ALL his books are hardback!"
Two of our church members have set up a 'church library' where members can donate Christian books for others to borrow, and I am pleased that the offerings are not all "lightweight" in content.

But how can booksellers remain in business when they charge such high prices? And is it good stewardship to spend my limited resources on a £99 book, however good it is?

[Craig]

Never mind the book, a sensible bookseller in Cambridge or anywehre is surely the true thing of beauty and a joy forever