"We may love books, but do we know what lies behind them? In The Book, Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue, and board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pages--of civilizations, empires, human ingenuity, and madness. In an invi…
Part 1. The page -- A clean sheet : the invention of papyrus -- Hidebound : the grisly invention of parchment -- Pulp fictions : the ambiguous origins of paper in China -- From Silk Road to paper trail : paper goes global -- Part 2. The text -- Stroke of genius : the arrival of …
Reveals how books and the materials that make them reflect the history of human civilization, tracing the development of writing, printing, illustrating, and binding to demonstrate the transition from cuneiform tablets and papyrus scrolls to the mass-distributed books of today.
We may love books, but do we know what lies behind them? Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue, and board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pages -- of civilizations, empires, human ingenuity, and madness. In a tactile history o…
Revealing the secret history of punctuation, this tour of two thousand years of the written word, from ancient Greece to the Internet, explores the parallel histories of language and typography throughout the world and across time.
This book charts the lives of some of the most intriguing examples, from the pilcrow to the ampersand and reveals the bust and boom endured by punctuation with each new technological innovation.
Revealing the secret history of punctuation, this tour of two thousand years of the written word, from ancient Greece to the Internet, explores the parallel histories of language and typography throughout the world and across time.