Reviewer: Beth Hartford-DeRoos
amazon.com top 100 reviewer

This is one of my longest reviews so bear with me since this is a rare and wonderful book on par with some of the masterpieces of centuries past when one considers the art work involved.

Being a rabid bibliophile I am always overjoyed when I come across a book that makes me pause and have one of those light bulb moments. Case in point is a quote I read on page 107 which states 'We increased knowledge after Gutenberg, but we also lost. sorrowfully, our ability to see' (emphasis on the word see). Lest you not know, Gutenberg was the one given credit for mass literature becoming available because of the printing press idea. And as this book demonstrates, prior to that time when books were produced individually and with great care, which included beautiful illustrations, and even gold leaf lettering beginning on most new chapter pages.

This made the work in my opinion, come alive and made the literature important and worthy of ones money and time. Alas, it is true that only those who had the money or the exposure to education where such literature was available read per se. So when Gutenberg came along so did the desire to learn to read and own books. I applaud Gutenberg.

What this book does is educate bibliophiles like myself on the evolution of fonts and literature in general. ... This is a book about words and fonts and so much more. Which is why it would actually take thousands of words carefully scripted to even give this book its worthy due as far a a review goes. It simply boggles the mind. No sooner would I be intrigued and educated briefly on something like art and calligraphy but wham I would be reading that 'In modern western writing, unlike with Chinese calligraphy 'the hand does all the work, leaving the rest of the body inactive, so that our writing is reduced in the end to a cerebral activity almost entirely cut off from its gestural foundation,' writes the scholar Pierre Francois Billeter' . Alas a new name to read up on and a Zen thought never considered. I say this because I do calligraphy, and I also grind my own Japanese brush stoke inks, and love practicing writing Hebrew and even Greek since alphabets are so artistic and intriguing to me.

Like the author who writes of starting out writing term papers on a typewriter (me on both a manual and electric) then on a computer the who evolution now allows for colour to be injected into ones final work. It is almost as if we have made a brief journey back to pre-Gutenberg time.

And on page 151 I am again reminded that colour used to play such an important role in literature as the author notes 'The illustrated books of the Chinese Buddhists were often the opposite of what Westerners consider 'normal'. The words were often printed in bright colors, whereas the illustrations were printed in black and white. The Chinese Buddhists wanted to insure that the pale ink drawings would not compete with the text for the attention of the reader'.

On page 176 I discovered that 100 years ago a man named Frederick Goudy introduced the concept of customized fonts. Now I admit I am a font junky as are other website owners I know. Fonts are art to me and they make any letter, diary, publication stand out if they arent the standard newspaper font. Anyway I discovered that Goudy had a big role in corporations developing personal fonts as part of their logos. Look at Coca Cola, Apple, Microsoft, Sears, IBM and you will see what I mean. Yet as the author asks, who was the 'artist' who designed these well known fonts? Should I assume they don't get residuals for each year the font continues to be used?

This is literally a piece of literature that every library public or private should own. It is for all ages if one loves literature. Have even been sharing it with my young grandchildren because I think it has serious historical value. My nerd family members are mesmerized and like me are drawn to the book because whenever you open it you find something new, either blatant or hidden that whets your appetite for more information. Which means google.com and the various bookstores I use are getting a great work out.

And being an artist myself I even bought some gold leaf and am in the process of gold leafing the old world letters on various chapter start pages.

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