bookishness

BH:  No, I think it refers to the novel being self-conscious about the bookishness of itself and its subject.

Never again will I take reading for granted; Sherman and Grafton made clear that bookishness is a behavior worth looking into.

But what I saw was people embracing and loving the bookishness of it.

But his well-knit body and clear eyes showed no marks of bookishness, and Italy had made him a swordsman.

All the unreality and mere bookishness of M. Comte's knowledge of physical science comes out in the passage I have italicised.

It was a sad example of beauty sacrificed on the altar of bookishness.

But that did not trouble me: I knew, I felt that I should be understood and that this very bookishness might be an assistance.

Perhaps it was the stimulus of mountain air, a bracing climate, that got him out of his habitual bookishness.