Books as signifiers, the paradox of tolerance, and Nazi bars

“Could you have a quick look at this manuscript? I think it could do with a fresh pair of eyes.” A request like this wasn’t unusual in the early days of Unbound, the now defunct and disgraced London-based publisher. Even though it was funded as a startup – their shtick was that they were building a crowdfunding platform that specialised in books, which was a story that a certain type of investor loved – and overloaded on technical staff, it was still firmly in its “scrappy make-do” era of company growth, so