Yesterday the staff at the bookshop could not bear the suspense any more and ceremoniously gathered round to break the seal on S. by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst (Canongate, £28), which has been intriguing us since it arrived. Inside the slipcase is a slightly battered looking “library book”, with its own Dewey decimal sticker, and date stamps. The novel is full of side notes, in different hands, debating the text, commenting to each other. Scatttered throughout the book are postcards, old posters, a cloth map, typed and handwritten letters, old newspaper cuttings. Reports are that the novel itself is worth reading, but not brilliant, but what we loved was the attention to detail in the whole package, and the absurd variety of material tucked into the book. A printer was in the shop last night and could not keep his hands off it. How did they do it all for £28, he said. As a publisher, I want to know as well. I hope the novel is good – but really, I don’t care. The whole book is such a masterpiece.

Ross Bradshaw