Posted by Alan hakim on January 11, 2005 at 17:46:39 from 212.137.173.66 user awhakim.
In Reply to: Re: Another book standard? posted by Alan Hakim on January 11, 2005 at 10:42:56:
I had a further look round the Library, and Dan's description of spine titles as 'top-to-bottom' is more accurate than 'leaning to the right'. Both Gujerati and Urdu (languages where publishers came under British influence) are top-to-bottom. But since Urdu is written from right to left, you need to lean to the left to read it.
Now I have gone home and looked at some of my books, in the case of Penguin Books it really does look like perversity. The Classics series started as bottom-to-top, but there was no clean change to top-to-bottom. Some new issues of the series were using the old style several years after earlier publications had changed. And a Penguin Buildings of England of Sussex which I bought last year, reprinted 2001, is bottom-to-top.