Sunday, August 31, 2008

The Most Beautiful Book.......Hmmm....


Anyone who has read any of my posts will know that I am a shameless devourer of books and that my appetite is more gourmand than gourmet.

It will come as no surprise then that I caved into my addiction once again (well, it was payday last Thursday) and have purchased 'The Most Beautiful Medieval Bibles' edited by Andreas Fingernagel and Christian Gastgeber.
Well, the display copy was beautiful, but I made the mistake of actually buying a cellophane- sealed one that I reasoned would be somewhat less dog-eared. Bit of a mistake: the copy I bought was poorer in reproduction quality than the one I looked at in the shop, the plates being duller and the pages having a peculiar dusty feel. So now I am in a quandary: do I return my purchase and ask for it to be exchanged for the display copy (this will entail carting it back into town: it's no light-weight tome and there's no guarantee that the display copy will still be there - there appeared to be only two copies in total) or keep the one I've got and feel slightly cheated. I have a feeling that this is a cynical marketing ploy, unload the second-rate repros, sight unseen. Consequently I feel miffed and annoyed with myself - usually a canny book-inspector - that I fell for this rather underhand tactic, if tactic it was.
Guess it serves me right if I get indigestion occasionally.

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