When the book was the new technology

In preparation for those Vancouver lectures, I've been reading lots and lots of different takes on Marshall McLuhan's aphorism, "The medium is the message." (I think he's wrong, by the way, but you'll have to listen to the lectures in November to find out why.) From critiques of McLuhan, I took a rabbit trail into the early days of print and the effect this had on the reading process. And while I was reflecting on how the book changes words, I came across this.