BEACHCOMBER 107 YEARS OLD AND STILL PASSIONATE ABOUT BOOKS...

KISSING and books may appear to have little in common, but I have noticed a hitherto unsuspected connection.

As you may recall, I wrote about books a few weeks ago when reporting my difference of opinion with Dyslexia the new trainee librarian at Beachcomber Towers. I managed to talk her out of Dewey Decimal systematic organisation but our discussion led me to ponder whether the present rather haphazard scheme could be improved.

My first thought was to classify the books according to size and colour, which would at least improve the visual appearance of the shelves, but then I noticed something disturbing about the orientation of the titles on the book spines. If the volume was thick, the title sometimes appeared horizontally on the spine when the book was placed standing up, but far more often, the spine was not wide enough to permit such a luxury and the publisher had to decide whether to print the title upwards or downwards.

I quickly discovered most volumes in my library had their titles written downwards, but many others, especially older or foreign books, were the other way round.

After researching the matter, I found that British Standard BS 6738 dating from 1968, covering the Presentation of Spine Titles, recommends the downwards direction. This is now followed by most publishers in the UK, USA, the Netherlands and, I believe, Finland. Yet books from France, Germany, Italy, Russia and most other European countries had their titles upwards on the spine. Why this inconsistency? The answer, I submit, is where kissing comes in. Last week, I wrote about the hazards of nose-bumping when kissing, with research showing 65 per cent of people avoid danger by inclining their heads to the right when passionately kissing. That, I suddenly realised, is the same direction of head-inclination needed to read the downward-sprinted title of a book. When kissing children or strangers, however, the majority of heads were found to incline leftwards, the direction needed for upwards titles.

The conclusion is clear: the British, Americans, Dutch and Finnish are passionate about their books, while other Europeans see them less romantically as just another part of the family.

Please excuse me now: I’m off to kiss some much-loved books.