Just over a year since its launch at London bookshop Tenderbooks, Veronica Ditting’s exhibition ‘Small Print’ is making its way Stateside, to Marta gallery in Los Angeles.

Originally comprising 100 miniature books from Ditting’s personal collection, ‘Small Print’ has more than doubled in size. Its second iteration, opening on Saturday 7 November, features 258 tiny tomes.

New additions include Yoshū Mame Tengoku (translated as Foreign Liquor Heaven or Western Liquor Heaven), a series of 36 books published in the 1960s for Japanese whisky producer Suntory. Exquisitely designed and printed, these little books cover subjects ranging from gardening and glassware to erotica.

Previously, a 5 × 5 mm leather-bound edition of the Lord’s Prayer held the title of smallest book in the collection. It has now been usurped by Das Kleinste Buch der Welt by German artist Josua Reichert. Measuring a mere 2.4 × 2.9 mm, this minute leather-bound book is printed using a specialist technique and legible only with a magnifying glass.

Other highlights include a rare miniature Webster dictionary housed in a custom Tiffany & Co sterling silver case bearing the brand’s hallmark; conceptual art books by Dieter Roth; Robert Filliou’s playful concertina Filliou Standard-Book (c. 1970–75); and a selection of original ‘Hanuman Books’, the pocket-sized series founded by Francesco Clemente and Raymond Foye.

Moving from an intimate bookshop to an art gallery, the second exhibition offers a new context for Ditting’s collection. She hopes to give Marta’s design-savvy audience fresh perspectives on bookmaking and the possibilities of printed matter.

An accompanying audio tour invites visitors to dial a dedicated number on their mobile phones to hear the stories behind selected books. Narrators also share their own relationships with printed matter. They include Fernando Augusto Pacheco, senior correspondent at Monocle Radio and host of its weekly print-media show The Stack; Ditting’s studio colleagues Harry McArthur and Laura Russell; and Ditting herself.

Ditting’s fascination with miniature books began during her childhood in Germany, with the pocket-sized dictionaries her parents would take on holiday. She credits these practical, everyday resources – now almost obsolete – with shaping her interest in scale and tactility. From there, her obsession took flight.

‘These ‘one-hand’, miniature or thumb books are intimate objects that force us to pay attention to the tiniest of details: the bend of a page; the width of a line; the heft of a spine,’ says Ditting, whose eponymous studio designs campaigns, branding, magazines and exhibitions for clients including Hermès, The Row, Louis Vuitton, Pirelli, Somerset House and Het Nieuwe Instituut. ‘They tell us the printed object is defined by tactility and technicalities. With eccentric proportions, these miniature books revive why we read.’

‘Small Print’ opens at Marta Los Angeles on Saturday 7 November and runs until 19 December 2026.