Books about print culture and design are often unavailable as audio books, so I am reading excerpts from some of my favourite books and essays on this podcast without editorial notes for a series I'm calling 'Print Reading Club'. This podcast is not affiliated with the author or the publisher of this work.

This is 'Amateurs Rush In' from Lisa Gitelman's book Paper Knowledge from 2014. What happened when children, artists, and other amateurs got access to D.I.Y. print and radio technology? This essay is about, among other things, novelty printing, 'zines, HP Lovecraft, and the dawn of the Couch Potato.

Lisa Gitelman is a media historian whose research concerns American print culture, techniques of inscription, and the new media of yesterday and today.  

This is read by Robin Mitchell Cranfield, a book designer, illustrator, and typography instructor.

Image: Detail of a type specimen from 'A Descriptive and Illustrated Pamphlet of the Novelty Job Printing Presses' by Benjamin O. Woods and Company, 1875. Via archive.org. This image does not appear in the book.