Most people apparently don't get the "uncut pages" joke in the Great Gatsby.
But I'd never heard of a page turner (except when describing a book itself). It's hard to imagine how it could be useful!
But I'd never heard of a page turner (except when describing a book itself). It's hard to imagine how it could be useful!
They were printed on a long paper then folded onto itself which creates the pages and then stitched in the middle, the folds are then are cut on the sides to free the pages.
Books today are usually precut and then glued, I did however encounter a few books with the odd uncut page usually texts books.
Other than that page turners were and are used for high value books and in some cases sacred books to avoid damage (or if touching the book is taboo) Jewish synagogues for example use a "pointer" to read from the scroll it self because those scrolls are usually to valuable to touch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yad
Actually, most books are still printed from folded sheets. The folds are shaved off the signatures in the bindery (3 sides for a sewn binding, 4 sides for a glue bind).
Ah, the memories... I recall some of the vintage math textbooks from my high school's library (one of the older teachers had died and willed his personal library to the school, about 12k books). I must have been the first one to actually read some algebra texts because about half of their pages was improperly separated.
But you are right -- I completely overlooked the ceremonial and curatorial uses of page turners! I was thinking of them as a mass-market device.