From prison stints for defacing books, to the historical evolution of the “shelfie”, Emma Smith’s Portable Magic is a riot of detail, scholarly insight, and fun. What gives a book its “bookhood”? What makes some volumes so collectable? Francesca Peacock is joined by the literary critic and author Lucasta Miller — author of Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph (2021) and The Brontë Myth (2001), amongst others — to discuss Smith’s new work.