Question: At the time, reading and writing seem to be both passtimes for rich people that poor people aren't welcome in, and activities for slaves that rich people are above. What differentiates these two modes?
Comment: I really enjoyed the comparison to modern paper early in Format Wars. I think it's very easy to assume that what is modern is inherently better than what we had in the past, and to focus on the flaws of previous choices and the benefits of modern ones, but papyrus and paper are really similar in their technical flaws and I appreciated the text calling out my biases on that.
Quote: "But the purpose and significance of a sacred religious text changed the requirements of that text in terms of its presentation to the reader and user, so that both the formation of the text and of the book itself had to change to meet 'the needs and conditions of different times and places'" (Winsbury, 26)