This bibliography focuses on technologies and social context of books as objects. See the Incunabula and Early Printing bibliography for topics dealing specifically with technologies of reproduction (printing and related).
★ I have read and recommend.
★★ Invaluable/authoritative/do-not-do-without resource
✓ I own this item.
ℭ Primary source (digital facsimile or trancription)
General Book History
★An Introduction to Book History and The Book History Reader / David Finkelstein & Alistair McCleery, eds.
★The Book: A Global History / Michael F. Suarez S.J. & H. R. Woudhuysen
★✓ What Is a Book?: The Study of Early Printed Books / Joseph A. Dane
★✓ The Book in Society: An Introduction to Print Culture / Solveig Robinson
One or more of these will be on an Intro to Book History class reading list, and any of them is a good starting point or overview refresher.
Book Construction
★★✓ The Codex in Context: The Craft of Bookmaking in Late Antiquity / Georgios Boudalis
★★✓ The archaeology of medieval bookbinding / J. A. Szirmai
★★✓ Headbands: How to Work Them / Jane Greenfield, Jenny Hille
★★ℭ Database of Bookbindings in the British Library
Organization of Information
★★Miscellaneous Order: Manuscript Culture and the Early Modern Organization of Knowledge / Angus Vine
Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading / Paul Saenger
★★ From Memory to Written Record: England 1066 – 1307 / M.T. Clanchy
★The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books / Edward Wilson-Lee
Regional Histories: Asia
★★Written on Bamboo and Silk: The Beginnings of Chinese Books and Inscriptions / Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien
★Home and the World: Editing the “Glorious Ming” in Woodblock-Printed Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries / Yuming He
★The Woman Who Discovered Printing / T.H. Barrett, Timothy Hugh Barrett
★A Social History of the Chinese Book: Books and Literati Culture in Late Imperial China / Joseph P. McDermott
Regional Histories: Southwest Asia and the Muslim World
★★The Technique of Islamic Bookbinding: Methods, Materials and Regional Varieties / Karin Scheper (2015)
★The Book in Mamluk Egypt and Syria (1250-1517): Scribes, Libraries and Market / Doris Behrens-Abouseif (2018)
★By the Pen and What They Write: Writing in Islamic Art and Culture / Sheila S. Blair (ed.)
★★✓ Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World / Jonathan M. Bloom (2001)
★★The Arabic Print Revolution: Cultural Production and Mass Readership / by Ami Ayalon
Mostly post-period but fascinating and important.
★★Lapis and Gold: Exploring Chester Beatty’s Ruzbihan Qur’an / by Elaine Wright
Gorgeous, lushly illustrated large-format catalog of the preservation and exhibition of the 16th-century Ruzbihan Qur’an.
Regional Histories: Western Europe
The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain: Volume 1, C.400-1100 / Richard Gameson (ed.)
★ The History of the Book in the West: 400AD-1455: Volume I / Pamela Robinson, Jane Roberts (ed.)
Vernacular Manuscript Culture 1000-1500 / Erik Kwakkel (ed.)
The Medieval Manuscript Book: Cultural Approaches / Michael Johnston, Michael Van Dussen (Editor)
★★ℭ The St Cuthbert Gospel: Studies on the Insular Manuscript of the Gospel of John / Claire Breay; Bernard Meehan; British Library
★★The Medieval Girdle Book / Margit Smith (2017)
Liepa Jonaite's SCA pages 