I was at a supervisory board meeting in Stuttgart yesterday. There was a display of recently-published books from our various companies - S.Fischer, Rowohlt, Kiepenheuer & Witsch and Droemer Knaur. The books were beautiful. Imaginative jackets, high-quality text design, good paper, strong binding - in short treasurability. The other thing I noticed was that the hardbacks carried neither price nor barcode - and they looked much better for it. Apparently, hardbacks are individually shrink-wrapped (is that eco-friendly?) and then stickered with price etc. In-store, the bookseller will unwrap one copy for display purposes and keep the rest pristine. The other thing I noticed was that prices compare more than favourably with British ones.

How come there is so much more quality in German book production and design than in the British (and some other country) equivalents? I'm sure independent retailers will cry 'retail price maintenance' but I'm not sure. Perhaps it is simply a greater reverence for the written word which permeates the educational system and into the book industry. Whatever the explanation, I think there's a lot British publishers can learn fronm Germany about how to make a book a desirable object as well as a leisure 'product'.

If you're interested in getting a sense of German books and can cope with the non-English signage, go to Lovely Books, a social network for book-lovers which our team in Germany has launched in beta version just recently and which is building up a significant number of literary registrants.

I leave you with a wonderful German cover for Buddenbrooks published by Fischer.

Stop press: The German Parliament has recognised the centrality of publishing and publishers to the development of scientific research. More German commitment to quality.