One thing that is bound to happen as e-texts threaten to displace traditional printed books is that publishers will fight back by designing ever more beautiful objects. This is the binding of a cookery book which comes without a spine–just threads running across folds of paper. Or so it appears. In fact, when you run your hand across it, it feels gluey, as though those green strings aren’t really doing much of the work. Still it’s a nice surprise and somehow appropriate to a genre which is all about remembering that you’re flesh and blood, at the end of the day and at quite a few times in the day before that.