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Comment by bradleyland | Hacker News Reader

It's all about the order of the lines. Let's assume the following is printed on two lines:

> 1: Fear and Loathing > 2: In Las Vegas

If rotated to the right (considered top-to-bottom), line #2 is to the reader's left when viewed on a book shelf. This is opposite the traditional left-to-right reading direction we use in west.

Whether or not this impacts you individually isn't as significant as the difference in reading direction outlined above.

I tend to side with the "local" belief that "when the book is lying face-up, its spine is of little value, because you can read all you want on the cover."

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How about face-up in a stack of books? Fastest way to find them, too, as then the lines are identical to how people read, no head-tilting needed.

  I tend to side with the "local" belief that "when the book   is lying face-up, its spine is of little value, because you   can read all you want on the cover."

I side with the belief that book bindings and cover directions should be in line with the language that book is written in.

In East Asia, tradition dictates that books are opened from left to right, using your right hand, with the spine on the right. As to the direction of the book title on the spine, there's no disagreement, because how it is written on the spine is how it is written on the pages - top to bottom and right to left.

Too bad Chinese books these days are starting to read like a western book. I wonder if it had anything to do with GOST 7.84–2002. It's either that or M$ Word has screwed everyone else's writing and printing tradition.

From http://www.sarm.am/en/standarts/view/2550 regarding countries where GOST 7.84-2002 is accepted : Ukraina Turkmenistan Russian Federation Uzbekistan Tadjikistan Moldova Kazakhstan Georgia Belorussia Armenia Kirgizstan Azebaijan

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