What is this guy referring to?

[just strum]

I was reading a review on XV-700 and this guy makes a comment

"As much as I like the guitar I have to be honest to say it wasn't really set up at all when I got it. Truss rod was fine, but the intonation was WAY OUT. Action wasn't too bad, but that's in personal preference. Pickups where fine, but the bookmatching on the top could have been a little better to a lot of people..."

What exactly is he referring to?

 

[mrmudcat]

The top is in two pieces and the grain pattern is not lined up or matched good.

Nothing to do with pups

 

[Rocket]

I don't know... either it's bookmatched or it's not. If the reflection is not you... it's not really a mirror.

 

[Plank_Spanker]

Pickups where fine, but the bookmatching on the top could have been a little better to a lot of people..."What exactly is he referring to?

It's matching the grain in the middle where the two pieces of the top meet.

Translated:

Cork Sniffing.

 

[tot_Ou_tard]

It's matching the grain in the middle where the two pieces of the top meet.

Translated:

Cork Sniffing.

I only sniff corks with bookmatched grain.

I have my dignity to think of.

 

[Ro3b]

The bookmatching did something bad that hurt or inconveninced a bunch of people.

 

[Brian Krashpad]

The top is in two pieces and the grain pattern is not lined up or matched good.

Nothing to do with pups

I think bookmatching is used in two different senses, a strict one and a more generalized one.

But both have to do with multipiece guitars or tops and grain-matching along seams. More strictly speaking (as in yours and Rocket's responses above), a book matched top takes 2 pieces that were taken from two cuts right next to each other in the tree's cross-section, so that each is very close to being a mirror-image of the other, when the same edge of each is carefully butted up along the center-seam. In this usage "bookmatching" would apply only to a 2-piece top, since an open book typically presents 2 pages to its reader.

But "bookmatching" is also sometimes used (somewhat inaccurately) in a more generalized sense to indicate any attempt to minimalize seams in a multipiece top/body by checking to see how the grain runs. I tend to use something like "grain-matching" to describe this. For example, with this T-40 bass either some care was taken in choosing the pieces so as not to accentuate the seams, or good fortune smiled on the assembly line for an instant:

Compare the above bass to this 3-piece body, where the left-most join is painfully obvious: