Type direction on spine of books
Ever notice that the title of some books are printed top down while a few are printed from the bottom up. A scholar may know the exact reason. I often find that spines printed from the bottom up were published outside of the United States. Not sure if other countries print titles in the same direction, but often the bottom up text was printed in Europe. I was looking for some typography books today and noticed the spine of Type Image Symbol a wonderful book by Adrian Frutiger
I used to work for the design firm Pentagram and one of the partners of the firm, Kit Hinrichs told me that the typography should always run top to bottom on the spine so it is right side up when the book is laying flat with the cover up. I have followed this rule for years as it makes total sense.