Also, over at BP a contrast has been noted between what it sees as the book being thrown at it by the Department of Justice for the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico - a guilty plea for serious crimes and the prosecution of three executives - and perhaps not such a weighty tome being lobbed at HSBC.

BBC: Are some banks too big to jail?

Who's big enough to admit there is at least a paragraph or two in that labyrinthine tome that remains a dimly lit corner?

BBC: SPORT | Rugby Union | Rugby's laws remain baffling

At 544 pages and 42 ounces, Sibley's tome is not a handy field guide, but, boy, is it comprehensive: 6, 644 illustrations (compared with Kaufman's 2, 000) of 810 species(Kaufman has 750).

FORBES: Peterson's Progeny

But rapturous receptions for writers like Anthony Beevor, author of a tome on wartime Berlin, show that interest in real books at least matches the appetite for chit-chat.

ECONOMIST: Dumbed-down Britain? You would be stupid to believe it