Quadraat!
for such a bulky volume a slightly condensed face might come handy.

and generally, i’d like to see more Quadraat in this world.

SCALA! Greatest reading font ever!

Of what’s on offer I’d vote for Quadraat. If you want to get a feel for it pick up a copy of the London Review of Books. It’s a great face but it does have its drawbacks: it performs better at smaller sizes than it does if it’s set larger (at 11 pts it looks awkward), and it has a dark colour on the page.

That said I’d also suggest you look at Dante, which has very attractive italics. FF Clifford would also be worth a look. And yes, Scala would be good too.

The problem with Warnock is its italic, whose design draws too much attention to itself. It’s beautifully supported with a whole family of size-specific cuttings and a symphonic orchestra of scripts and typographical tools...but then so does Adobe Garamond Premier Pro, which is also a good book face.

Which brings me to an important question: as this is a book of philosophy will you be setting any Greek? If so, this should be taken into account when you pick your face. If you are I’d go for Garamond Premier Pro.

Thank you all for your suggestions!

To problematize this a bit more, (and also pick your brains)...

—Yes, there are epigraphs throughout, and some are in Greek, Latin, French, and German...and from time to time (perhaps 10 places)the female character speaks a word or two in Czech!

—As the 2 page italicized inter-sections occur 15+ times, italics are indeed important, so thanks for your input on that.

—I forgot to mention something else: there are many long block quotes (excerpts from journals and letters), and long sections of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley and his circle (Byron, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont)during their Italian exile (1818-1824). Suggestions about these parts? Smaller font size? Different font altogether to reflect period?

—Any suggestions on a nice wingding to use to separate sections? I am currently using a kind of flourish thing, but wonder if anyone knows a good sources of high quality flourishes.

Thanks!

I wouldn’t use an entirely different font for letters, poems and journal entries. The differences of antiqua/book faces that you could use are too subtle. I don’t think a reader would really get it and it would just look slightly strange. Consequently I would recommend using white-space (e.g. indentation), possibly size or italics.

Another theoretical possibility would be to use something that is obviously different from the main text. However, all the options I can think of (sans, script, typewriter, blackletter) wouldn’t look good in the context of the work you are describing.

Is color an option? A darkish blue or green maybe?

As for the text face, Arno Pro may also be an option. It has all the script support you need and a fine italic (and optical sizes).

I own a copy of Sferen, a 1000 page book set in Scala. It gets annoying after a certain amount of reading.

I would definitely go with Quadraat.