Greenhill, 2002, limited edition, ISBN 1-85367-517-2, 208 pgs., hardcover

The world, at least as I saw it, gets divided into two kinds of book lovers-book readers and book collectors.

Book readers are people like me: Content is King. The information within is the most valuable aspect of a book, for it opens up new paths of knowledge. Prose is Queen. A smartly written book is a work of art, and a most enjoyable pastime. The illustrations, maps, photos, drawings, and so on, are the princes and princesses of the book reader. They best match the text and add a thousand words. And the cover, well, that's the court jester-I never judge a book by its cover.

Now the book collectors baffle me. They gather great reams of text and graphics and hardly glance at the pages, and then often only to judge its marketable value, not its worth. Leave a fingerprint upon a first edition and in comes the court astrologer with prognostications of your doom. Edge an autographed copy of a first edition near a coffee cup and the royal executioner strolls into the room.

Pardon my chiding. I sound a little like the fictional character Indiana Jones, who never met an artifact that didn't "belong in a museum" for all to enjoy. To me books should be read.

Which brings me back to the world of book lovers. As I noted before, I used to see the world as book readers and book collectors. Yet into this properly polarized place resides a third faction--the book publishers, and I can thank Lionel Leventhal for helping to expand by borders.

On Publishing is a remarkable autobiography of a publisher's life in the book industry, written with a keen sense of observation about how the industry changed over the last 50 years, and how Lionel changed with it as well as how he promulgated the change. It's a deeply personal memoir, filled with marvelous anecdotes and wry commentary about the process of turning an author's idea into a printed edition. It examines much of what went right with Lionel's various companies, and some of what went wrong.

You see, many things now fashionable were once ostracized, and it falls to the small publishers, not huge conglomerates, to try new ideas. And as Lionel points out, part of the business side is luck.

Who Dares Wins about the British SAS, hit the bestseller list when the SAS stormed terrorists holding the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980. Yet the contact between author and publisher, and the packaging of the product, paved the way for luck to enter.

On the other hand, Lionel rejected a book called The Hunt for Red October. That would have dwelt in remainder shops had not President Reagan toted it in front of the world media. So it goes.

Yet for all the dealmaking and business rationales, the essence of the memoir rests on the actions and reactions of its main character. Reading about his near suffocation in a spacesuit as part of a marketing tactic caused me to laugh so hard, I literally dropped the book.

Much of what he writes has appeared in the Greenhill Military Book Review (you can find various issues on MagWeb.com). And you'll find the warm charm and wit throughout this volume that covers from 1954 to the 1980s. He notes the sequel will cover 1990s and beyond.

I suppose you can publish anything, but Lionel shows a real passion for the publishing field, and especially on military topics. Not every book is fantastic, but you'll find a consistency in quality and a deft touch for the entire Greenhill line. You might get that from a conglomerate, but you'll definitely find it from a specialty publisher.

I can recommend On Publishing as a book lover. It's sharp, insightful, and compelling. I can also recommend it as a newfound "book collector." It's a limited edition of 750 copies and I made sure Lionel autographed my copy. Thus I am now the proud owner of exactly two autographed books: On Publishing and Stephen Coonts' Flight of the Intruder. Here's hoping Lionel does indeed publish a sequel so I can make it three, because the book lover in me wants to read on.