An Introduction to the Art of Sensory Book Assessment
published by the Society for Sensory Book Assessment Enthusiasts
History
In 1618, Cornelis J. Drebbel wrote a pamphlet that would change the world.
At that time he was a librarian, but as owner of the town’s only printing press he faced public pressure to organize a local newspaper. Drebbel was a talented writer, but had difficulty generating stories of popular interest in the town of Little Flocking.
Day after day, he rhapsodized about farming, politics, and education, but could not even hold his own attention. The only audience he had for these rejected drafts was young Franz Kruger, widely regarded as the town simpleton. In fact Kruger was a genius introvert, as we have learned from the fragments of Drebbel’s diaries that survived the 1629 fire.
Unwelcome in the places where other children played, Kruger spent his afternoons in the library. Since other patrons rarely came on the weekdays, and wishing to pursue his private experiments, Drebbel eventually took Kruger into his confidence. The outer doors were locked and Kruger was invited to accompany the librarian into the basement, where he had assembled an elaborate workshop. Everywhere, workbenches and drafting tables displayed complex diagrams and wild contraptions. Books in Drebbel’s personal collection were stored on shelves that overflowed across the hard dirt floor. It was here in this lower level, described by Kruger in his memoirs with some detail, that history was made.
Late October of 1618 saw Cornelis Drebbel in almost total seclusion, in manic pursuit of his vision. It was not a story, but a set of instructions. Kruger watched as he juggled, hugged, sniffed, tossed, rubbed, and dropped an endless procession of books. On the 31st, Drebbel presented young Franz Kruger with the first draft of his masterpiece.
Even though Drebbel printed hundreds of copies of Sensory Book Assessment on his printing press, history has not seen fit to preserve even one of these pamphlets. The ever-restless Drebbel quickly moved on to other fancies; less than two years later he had built the world’s first functioning submarine, and his literary philosophy was all but forgotten in the glory of this new triumph. By 1629 his continued experiments had begun to terrify the townspeople, who burned down his library and workshop as a warning not to trifle with Mother Nature. Drebbel was away at the time, so only young Franz Kruger was killed in the fire, but not before having written his own thoughts on the subject of sensory book assessment. Thankfully this document, having been kept at his mother’s house, was not destroyed by the blaze.
Drebbel’s entire concept would have been lost to the ages were it not for young Franz Kruger. And indeed, it almost was. The widow Kruger was hysterical with grief. After her husband’s death (either in 1608 or 1609) young Franz was all she had. Completely alone now, she plunged into a state of reclusive madness that lasted for months. Popular lore held that any form of madness caused by grief was not only incurable but also contagious, and the town began to whisper about burning down the widow Kruger’s house as well. But eventually she discovered the papers that Franz had left behind, and read about his continued interest in the embryonic art of sensory book assessment that Drebbel had abandoned three years before. Just as the citizens were beginning to gather with their torches and primitive accelerants, the widow Kruger emerged from her cottage and assured them that she was possessed of a new clarity. Once the townspeople left, she boarded up the Kruger home and set off to find Drebbel, whom she last had heard was in Poland studying a dangerous chemical theory.
Catching up with him finally in 1636, she convinced the exiled inventor to teach her more about this art form that he himself had long since forgotten. By 1640, Drebbel and Mrs. Kruger had two sons, and it was one of these (the taller one) who would carry on the art form into the next century.
So few scholars have learned or passed along the techniques of SBA that its history remains largely shadowed, but the basic principles have survived, and a few original documents from the great masters who have helped contribute are stored in the Museum of Sensory Book Assessment (open Tuesday and Wednesday 4:00 p.m.- 9:00 p.m., April through September).
Philosophy
“Humans and books are entities whose physical characteristics betray what they hold inside.”
According to Kruger, this was the thesis Drebbel was exploring when he laid the foundations of SBA. Judging a book by its cover, of course, is impossible to do accurately. Just as a person cannot be known based entirely on her facial expression, the cover of a book does not possess sufficient information to reveal its whole meaning. However, in the same way that human beings may be summarily sized up by taking a good hard look at them, a book can be judged with reasonable precision based on a larger number of corporeal attributes. What follows is a description of the basic methods for utilizing five primary human senses to assess the physical presence of a book and determine, without reading a single word, the book’s contents.
Why would any intelligent person want to divine the contents of a book without reading it? Let me first explain that the Society of Sensory Book Assessment Enthusiasts endorses this process only as a means to enhance the reading experience. Misuse of the method for the writing of book reports, for example, without reading the text, would constitute cheating. And as countless famous stories teach, cheating is lying. And lying is wrong.
Furthermore, if you were a person who took the time to learn the art of sensory book assessment and you found yourself at an intimate social gathering – such as the Midwestern Sherlock Holmes Society annual High Tea held at the Aurora Public Library – where the host gestured to a certain book and asked if you had read it, you might employ your skills to give the false impression that you had read the book in question, even though you had not. But telling this type of seemingly victimless lie leads inevitably to the “karmic snowball effect”. Before you even know that something is wrong, you’ll be walled up in your own words, then exposed as a fraud, and nobody will ever trust you again. (For a more detailed exploration of the karmic snowball effect, see Fragments of Drebbel’s Theory on Unavoidable Consequences, another incomplete tract saved from obscurity and compiled by the Society of Sensory Book Assessment Enthusiasts.)
Even if you consider yourself to be advanced in the art of misrepresentation, and merely think that sensory book assessment would be an interesting tool to hone your skills as an actor, this is not a purpose that the teachers of the technique are able to condone. Acting, just like fiction writing, is merely an attempt to make a profession out of telling falsehoods. Actors are con-artists as surely as the sky is blue.
Legally and philosophically, the ancient and near-forgotten art of sensory book assessment can only be recommended for implementation as a reading enhancement technique, which opens up a fantastic primal connection with the text that more casual readers will never be lucky enough to experience. A story is not told exclusively through the words. A story is completely contained within a book. The whole book. The medium is the message, and the package is the product.
The Five Senses
For the purpose of introductory example, the five human senses will be discussed separately, but none of them is important enough to judge a book on its own. The expert sensory book assessor will instinctively cross-reference between her five senses, to arrive at the best conclusions almost instantaneously.
The most commonly-encountered results for each sensory test are presented here. In each category, it will be helpful to practice the techniques on texts you know well. When you begin to try out the SBA methods on unfamiliar books, be as specific as possible with your conclusions. Then, read the books and check your work. Explore the areas where you may have gone wrong. Soon you will be ready to employ SBA in the field.
Sight
We begin our introduction with sight because most neophytes will instinctively start with this sense. However, it is important to stress that proper Sensory Book Assessment should never begin with sight. This sense is so powerful that it tends to overwhelm the impressions made by the other four, and thus is best saved for last. The Society has long recommended that all assessors perform their initial tests with the eyes closed or covered, and despite the occasional protest or hastily-written essay to the contrary, the Society will not be changing its official position on this topic.
However, many of the descriptions and instructions in the following sections will utilize terminology defined here, so for the sake of practicality we shall commence here.
Several categories of assessment fall under the umbrella of Sight. This human sense can be applied in so many ways that one might easily think it is the most important, but I must reiterate this caution. Our natural reliance on sight gives us a tendency to trust our vision implicitly, and this is one of our greatest vulnerabilities. We may be easily tricked by what we see. Do not perform sight tests until all other sensory input has been exhausted. Then, use the sight tests only to confirm or deny the conclusions you have already reached in the course of research.
Dimensions:
Most books can be easily assessed by their dimensions. Here I have broken down some of the most common sizes and the contents usually associated with them.
4”x7”x1” Dimestore Standard
The lion’s share of all used books fall here. Romance, legal thriller, detective fiction (both male and female author, male and female protagonist), horror (technically a Dimestore Standard, despite the genre’s elimination), reprinted literature by deceased authors, science fiction and true crime are all represented here.
4”x7”x2+” Dimestore Spectacular
Books in this category represent the most popular authors from the Dimestore Standard categories (the fact that an author’s work becomes thicker as her popularity increases has been irrefutably established in Ruth Blatt von Teitl’s seminal essay Three Kinds of Inflation, available from the Museum. Also see Relativity, in this pamphlet) Also included are the paperback editions of contemporary literature which smells like glue and is not important enough to be released in trade paperback.
5.25”x8”x1” Trade Paperback
Clean smelling and literary, never embossed. In the grand scope of printing and bookmaking, the Trade Paperback is a recent creation, and the definitive work has yet to be written about the effect this format has had upon Sensory Book Assessment. Indeed, some of our scholars have refused to waste their finely-honed skills upon the form. On the other hand, many of us have embraced the Trade Paperback just as the academic world has done.
6”x9”x1” VIP Trade Paperback
relative to Trade Paperback the way Dimestore Spectacular is relative to Dimestore Standard.
6”x9”x1/2” Poetry
a curious mixture of fiction and autobiography, largely anachronistic in the modern world. When this dimension is applied to a hardbound book of sufficient age, however, it tends to take on greater importance.
6”x9”x2” Literary Reference/Anthology
More difficult to judge than fiction. For Lord Jerome Bismouth’s fascinating thoughts on this topic, see volume 8, issue 4 of the Society of Sensory Book Assessment’s newletter.
Color of Paper:
The literary quality of the contents varies according to the shade of paper. The most common distinctions used by reviewers are: porcelain white, newsprint grey, ecru, smoker’s tooth, eggshell, parchment, horn, snow, and whalebone. For the chart, please consult A Beginner’s Guide to Sensory Book Assessment, available from the Museum of Sensory Book Assessment (see above).
Cover:
The craftspersons responsible for cover design are always required to become intimately familiar with the text, and the cover they produce is therefore born whole cloth from the author’s own imagination and intent, whether or not they know, agree, or care.
Several specific categories are used in assessment of the cover. Most important among these are images, relative positioning, and color scheme.
Images present: most genres that allow pictorial covers may be determined by the combination of images present. (see chart in Beginner’s Guide for juxtaposition). Obviously the following lists are incomplete – the Society of Sensory Book Assessment Enthusiasts maintains a central archive of cover image analysis large enough to fill a dozen pamphlets! What follows are the most common categories, as a means of illustrating our method. Ultimately, the task of cataloguing every possible image that may appear on a book jacket will take more than eleven years to complete, and until that time the expert assessor will have to rely on experience and clear judgment when making his final determination.
Types of people – man (in suit, with hat), man (in suit, without hat) man (not in suit), woman (elegant), woman (lurid), woman (lounging), woman (wistful), painted people, drawn people, people silhouetted in doorways, people silhouetted against very tall windows, retouched photograph, unretouched police photograph, child (at play), child (in danger), dead body.
Types of locations – landscape, cityscape, forest, beach, porch of hacienda, attic with vista visible through high impassible window, interior of drawing room, lawn (with chairs), lawn (without chairs but with some indication of human presence, like a croquet set), the ocean floor, fantastical alien planet.
Types of objects – writing implement of any kind, weapon (non-projectile), weapon (projectile), key, rope swing with nobody playing on it, mirror (shattered), mirror (intact), object of value which is stolen in the course of the story, table set for two, ominous pool of blood.
Other – it is rare, but the assessors have encountered certain images time and again which fit less neatly into the previous categories. Here are a few:
pair of eyes (human or nonhuman) disembodied in the sky above a landscape, gleaming fangs of an unknown creature, the earth’s moon (not as a location), or an image visible through an irregular hole cut into the actual cover of the book but printed on the interior page.
The chart in A Beginner’s Guide to Sensory Book Assessment juxtaposes the images with their accompanying contents. However, if these images come in the form of a detail from a famous painting credited on the back cover in fine print (or more pedantically on the publication page), the category is always contemporary literature.
Relativity: Even more than the cover text itself, the relative size and position of various cover design elements betrays a great deal about the contents of a story.
Publisher’s insignia: There are two main positions for the publisher’s insignia. The first location is a tasteful banner along the top or the bottom of the cover, a muted and discreet choice that reveals an understated sensibility. The unspoken message of this choice is an uncompromising faith in the author’s work, which is believed to speak for itself. The publisher’s insignia does not call attention to itself, or require the casual peruser to make comparisons between this and any other text. Usually illustrated with a detail from a famous painting, covers with this insignia contain texts that deal with deep matters of the heart, but filtered through a modern, slightly jaded intellect. If it occurs on a cover with a glossy finish then the net result is hip and ironical, where a matte cover accompanies works by those authors who, despite a modern world where the dollar is mightier than the heart, still desperately want to believe in an outdated notion of romanticism.
The second location for the publisher’s insignia is a burst or triangle in the upper right-hand corner. These publishers deal in fetishistically particular types of fiction which appeal to repeat buyers. Contemporary literature is never represented here, and these books have never appeared on a graduate-level syllabus.
The other two primary components for cover relativity are the title and the author’s name. Obviously, a title boldly displayed near the top of the cover is so typical as to be meaningless. Conversely, an author’s name displayed above the title can, depending on other contextual elements, indicate either great literary significance or the precise opposite. Save the sight test for last, and review the Society’s references! Misinterpreting the placement of a popular author’s name could result in a grave blunder when assessing the book, not to mention the risk of serious injury or lawsuit.
Color scheme: many genres, as well as distinctions within genres, may be determined on the basis of the color scheme on the cover. A few examples follow.
Black – peculiar to horror, detective stories, science fiction. Horror (still available in used book stores) is distinguished by the addition of red or green, detective by the addition of black and white images or red in the form of an ominous pool of blood, and science fiction by the addition of blue or silver.
Pink, Green, Sky Blue, White – almost exclusively used in romance, easily determined by the presence of a woman with torn bodice. May also be used in contemporary dimestore detective fiction by a female author, especially if the image depicts the interior of a home in perfect order disrupted only by the presence of a weapon or an ominous pool of blood.
Large Palette of Muted Colors – frequently found in the painting of fantastical alien landscapes, but not unknown on the covers of literature about the inner emotional turmoils of a family going through troubled times.
Applications: As mentioned before, the primary goal of the sight tests is to verify the conclusions formed through the other sensory assessments. Do not allow sight tests to form your first impressions; this the worst mistake a sensory book assessor can make.
Smell
Open the book and lift it to a height of one inch below your nose. Inhale deeply. You have now completed the physical action of the test. All that remains is to assess the quality of the smell:
Clean
The crisp, almost scentless whiff of paper usually found on only the newest books. Some publishers of Contemporary Literature (see Genre Distinctions) purposely imbue their product with a distinctly literary bouquet, designed to impart specific sense memories associated with the reading of excellent prose. A clean-smelling book seems free of the tawdriness flaunted by some genres. You’ll be tempted – and correctly so – to assume that books of this fragrance are brand new, but many Contemporary Literature titles in trade paperback form may survive a previous nonsmoking owner without losing factory freshness.
Vintage Clean
Anyone familiar with our newsletter will have heard about the controversy surrounding the scent category Vintage Clean. Oberon Phelps, Ph.D., has written a series of essays regarding what he calls “A narrow but distinct group of frugally-produced mid-century mysteries, histories, and reprints of classical literature… set apart by the bright, washed smell of the glue in the spine.” When faced with the fact that most of his associates could not distinguish between the smell of books Phelps had termed Vintage Clean and others that smelled like old glue, he asserted that only his own finely tuned nose could be responsible. If others could not tell the difference, then lack of experience was to blame.
Detractors, especially the most vocal team of E.N.T. specialist Dr. Amelia Bodene and psychologist Dr. Aaron Fennel, have leveled an arsenal of convincing arguments against him. Most prominent is a theory that Physical Abnormalities in the structure of Phelps’ sinal passages cause him to occasionally experience ‘false’ or ‘phantom’ smells. Phelps – who put himself through medical school with money he made as a prize-fighter – has sustained many deforming injuries to the nose area. In their fourth essay, Dr. Fennel goes so far as to suggest that Phelps’ psychological scars over his appearance led to an escapist dependency on the books he’d grown up reading. When he took up the art of Sensory Book Assessment, according to the psychologist, Oberon Phelps imagined that these books registered as being somehow different than their contemporaries.
In the most recent edition of the newsletter (coincident to this first printing of the pamphlet), Phelps has introduced our Society to Brandon Matthew Benninger, an award-winning pastry chef, but also a professional coffee taster by trade. Benninger makes several salient points about the incredibly subtle distinctions that coffee tasters must be capable of discerning, which Phelps wastes no time comparing to his olfactory exploits. His detractors have yet to respond to this new argument, but this is sure to remain an exciting debate!
Glue
Can be the booksmeller’s bane. Seasoned noses may distinguish the subtleties among various economic grades of glue, but the novice will need a lot of practice before trying to follow in his master’s footsteps. The scent of glue usually ages and ripens along with the book, creating a rule of thumb that older books are possessed of a more musty glue smell. However, certain cheap, modern glues can imitate the olfactory effects of aging. Books with a sharp glue smell are usually newer, sometimes of literary merit, but always a lower calibre than those books with a clean smell. Simple cross-referencing in the taste and touch categories should clear up any questions about age, but the SSBAE encourages novices not to rely on glue alone for any element of assessment.
Wood
Storage in libraries has a unique effect on books. Higher class of air suppresses the accumulation of musty glue smells, while encouraging the robust nose of the paper itself. A deeply moving sensory impression is created, combining the soothing and natural smell of the wood with the quiet, intellectual atmosphere of the library into an emotionally-charged memory key. Even when a book is taken from the library environment, through borrowing or discard, the encoded smell is largely retained. Books that smell strongly of wood are almost always former lenders. Library books are more likely to be of high literary quality than your average dimestore page-turner, but don’t be fooled into giving it the benefit of the doubt solely on account of the elegant smell. Libraries carry bad books, too.
Laundry
Books that smell like laundry should be immediately cross-referenced in the touch category. The texture of a laundry-smelling book is frequently gritty, to the fingertips and in terms of content. You will probably find the pages rough on the surface and the edges. Laundry smell typically results from long-term storage in a disused location (por ejemplo, a basement), and often indicates that the subject matter is of such low, pot-boiler quality that the volume was tucked away for years and never referred to again. Sometimes the laundry smell is also reflected in a visual impression of dirtiness (see Sight).
Applications: Once you have categorized the smell of the book, you are ready to begin. Remember, if you encounter an unfamiliar smell, assistance is available through the Museum of Sensory Book Assessment during regular business hours (see above).
The first use of smell in book assessment is to determine whether the book is new or used. This is important because certain types of books (detective stories, true crime, science fiction – see Genres) can only be found used, while others (such as horror) do not exist at all. Thus, by determining the age of a book, a few categories may be ruled out. New books always smell clean. If anything has been done to sully the smell, the book cannot be considered new.
The Sensory Book Assessor uses smell to determine the approximate age and history of a book, and forms their first instinctual impressions about the content based upon this information. Books that are easiest to identify through scent are paperback detective stories, older World Book Encyclopedias, and books about teenaged women who become addicted to cocaine. For further information and the accompanying charts, please consult A Beginner’s Guide to Sensory Book Assessment, available from the Museum of Sensory Book Assessment (see above).
Touch
The sense of touch, specifically as rendered through the use of fingertips (though they should not be considered the only utensil), is an essential tool in divining the contents of a book. Touch can reveal the texture of the page’s surface, the finish of the book’s cover, and the presence or absence of cover art embossing. In the case of hardcovers, touch can even reveal the nature of the inner surface, beneath the dust jacket.
Taking the book in your hands, rub the pads of the fingers thoroughly, and with varying pressure, over both the front and back covers. Then open the book and repeat the test on the pages themselves. For best results, select several pages at random – especially those pages to which the book naturally falls open of its own accord.
The main categories that SBA enthusiasts utilize to describe the finish on covers of books are:
Matte (rough), matte (smooth), smooth (standard), or smooth (glossy).
Matte (rough) usually indicates a used book of dimestore standard size with typically unrefined contents. Often accompanied by pages of lowest-grade newsprint. This category does not exclude books whose covers were originally smooth (standard), but age and exposure have broken them down to a weatherbeaten mess. All works in this category feature no fewer than three dreadfully rainy nights, one gunshot, and a character referred to as a “spinster”.
Matte (smooth) is used exclusively by contemporary literature. While the surface feels slick to the touch, the visual impression is that the cover art is being pressed up against the opposite side of a frosted shower door. This sense of slight but undeniable distance is echoed by the contents, wherein the primary characters deal with inner torments instead of external troubles. Pain is never expressed through unrestrained action, but rather through well-reasoned exposition (frequently internal). The last line will be either pithy, unsatisfying, or both, but will have skillfully avoided irony.
Smooth (standard) is so common that it cannot be used to narrow the focus of the contents. There was a time when the Sensory Book Assessor could count on this category to reveal Romance, Pornography or Grand Adventure, but recent decades have seen every imaginable work of literature reprinted with a smooth (standard) cover.
Smooth (glossy) always indicates genre fiction, and is well-known to lovers of romance, drama, mystery and spy novels. This category of cover rarely contains enough information to make a judgment, unless the artwork or title has been embossed; in this case, the book is either horror (which does not exist), true crime, or legal thriller. Romance may also be embossed, but if so the narrative will be undermined by a shocking twist, such as the return of a red-headed sister long thought to have died on a jungle expedition.
Some books have rough pages which give the impression of drying out the skin of the fingers as the pages are turned. This is often accompanied by an edge with a ragged appearance. Watch out for moralistic fables masquerading as entertainment.
Some books, in turn, have paper so smooth that the fingers may actually perceive the elevation of the printing over the surface of the page.
Applications: The Book Assessor uses the information gleaned from touch to enhance the conclusions received from the Smell test. For more information, consult A Beginner’s Guide to Sensory Book Assessment, available from the Museum of Sensory Book Assessment (see above).
Taste
Certain genres may be ruled out by simply tearing a small square of paper from the corner of the title page and placing on the tongue.
If the paper dissolves quickly, leaving an aftertaste like wood, with the chalky slip of newsprint in the back of the throat, the paper is probably of the ragged variety and the smell more like laundry than glue (this is especially helpful when the smell test reveals a text so musty that inexperienced Sensory Assessors are unable to distinguish between cheap, ancient adhesive and neglectful storage conditions). Books of this type invariably fall into one of the dimestore standard categories, or possibly collections of Peanuts or Family Circus cartoons released in paperback format between 1974 and 1982.
If the paper remains stiff, resisting dissolution and revealing no woody flavor, the taste may be identified as High Art and the book a trade paperback. Special materials added to the pulp in the early stages of the paper-making process can artificially inflate the apparent level of expertise in the writing. The quality of the literature varies inversely to the intensity of the flavor of glue in the aftertaste.
Applications: For a special pocket-sized version of Professor Hyland Lupinski’s indispensable dual-sided rotating wheel of Sensory Book Assessment taste categories, please contact the Museum of Sensory Book Assessment (see above). Further information can also be obtained through a more thorough licking of the cover, spine, and edges of the page, though this exponentially increases the risk of damage to the book. For this reason, these more advanced tests are sanctioned by the Society only when performed by experienced assessors, and all information regarding these tests is made available only to those members with more than three hundred successful lifetime assessments.
Sound
The two primary tests for sound quality are the riffle of the pages while the book is held close to the ear, and the standard dropping of the book on a wood floor.
Some books, when riffled, elicit a brittle scraping sound not unlike a muffled weedeater. The novice to the sensory categorization methods should quickly learn that books with smoother riffles are always the most literary. Choppy sounds indicate low quality paper and formulaic endings. However, these choppy tomes should always be judged in conjunction with their scents, as basement storage of the most highbrow literature can result in a damp laundry smell and a sodden riffle.
Some books, when riffled, produce a gentle patter reminiscent of fine playing cards being shuffled by a wealthy playboy in a plushly carpeted den, but these books also tend to stain along the edges of the page when riffled by slightly unclean thumbs. The stories in these books are not so common that they require concealment when the relatives drop by unexpectedly, and indeed may be possessed of brilliant turns of phrase. But their popularity is predicated on their timeliness; the contents, like the packaging, will never stand the test of time. In order to ensure their shelf-life, specially-made, ultra-thin riffling gloves are available from the Museum of Sensory Book Assessment (see above).
The dropping test reveals the intricacies of the plot in works of fiction. The room in which this test is performed must be perfectly quiet and not located on the ground floor of the building (unless, of course, the basement is uninsulated). Because accurate assessment requires a keen ear, it may behoove you to practice with two books you have already read, one of which is elegantly plotted with well-drawn characters, and the other of which contains characters solely created to further a plot that was disappointing to begin with.
Applications: The complexity of the plot is demonstrated in the complexity of the sound of impact, ranging from surprisingly flat to unaccountably ringing. Two separate texts on the subject are available from the museum (see above). The first, The Added Weight of Meaning, is a study by Herotimus Algernon Föen, founder of the Upper Peninsula Sensory Book Assessment Appreciation Society. Using a number of standard titles, all of them likely familiar (both through reading and assessment) to any active member of the Society, Föen analyzes the known contents in conjunction with droppages performed in a variety of locations.
Calling Föen’s conclusions “wishful thinking”, Dr. Dierdre Sloan condemns this entire test as misguided. Sloan has long been Föen’s most vocal detractor (their professional rivalry dates back to the original “uncut pages debates” of the early 1950s), but this is by far her most bitter and personal attack yet. Her treatise Sound Signifying Nothing concedes that other sensory assessments may divine a book’s contents with nearly pinpoint accuracy, but calls the drop-test “a useless waste of time, a vain attempt to conjure viable data from thin air.” The infamous last line of her essay is: “One might just as well press one’s ear to the cover of a book, and rap the other side with the knuckles as if knocking on a door. This action would be no more futile than dropping the book on the floor. Those who say otherwise are probably the same people who contend that the ocean can be heard inside a sea shell.” Inadvertently, this sentence created a minor sensation among some of the Society’s more eccentric members. Forming a secondary organization called Hit the Books, they published a series of anonymous articles claiming that the “knocking test” was valid, and supported the claim with a number of questionable testimonials. Most of these were signed with pseudonyms.
A Young Science
We at the Society of Sensory Book Assessment Enthusiasts hope that these rather liberal asides we have taken, in the course of describing our procedures, have not characterized the organization in a negative light. Conflicts do arise amongst our members, as they do within any society, but these quarrels should not discourage anyone from joining. This young science is a study filled with new discoveries and lively debate. It is only through these discussions that we can learn and grow, and carry on the vision of the great Mr. Drebbel and his devoted pupil Kruger, a vision that neither of them was fortunate enough to follow.
Other Publications Available from the Museum of the Society of Sensory Book Assessment Enthusiasts
The Society of Sensory Book Assessment Enthusiasts Newsletter
A subscription to this quarterly newsletter is included in the annual Society membership fee, but individual back issues are usually available from the Museum. Contains up-to-date information about members and museum activities, current projects and convention schedules, and scholarly essays by eminent authorities in our field.
A Beginner’s Guide to Sensory Book Assessment
The indispensable handbook for all newcomers to the science of SBA. Includes more detailed information on all the topics discussed in this pamphlet, along with all of the referenced charts.
Great Debates of the SBA volume one
Collecting some of the most riveting essay cycles ever published in the Newsletter, volume one includes Three Kinds of Inflation by Ruth Blatt von Teitl and the daring response by Dr. Leif Jordan, Living on the Pharmacist’s Shelf. Also includes works from Phelps, Bodene and Fennel. Look for volume two in the fall.
The Kruger Papers
Reprints all the known surviving journal entries Kruger made about Sensory Book Assessment and Cornelis Drebbel.
Karmascope: Fragments of Drebbel’s Theory on Unavoidable Consequences
This pamphlet salvages what remains of another philosophy pioneered by the founder of SBA. While not necessary for a complete understanding of Sensory Book Assessment, the two theories have some interesting points of similarity, and this work is a real treat for the true Enthusiast.