Subtitled: How I found a book in the library that seems to exactly fit a lot of what we've been learning in this class!
That's right. I was looking for books on typography (see this post for my bibliography on that subject) when I came across this little red book, published in 1932.
It was called "Black on White - the Story of Books".
Just for fun, here it is in bibliography form:
Ilin, M. Black on White - the Story of Books. J. B. Lippincolt Company, Philadelphia and London. 1932.
Cool, innit?
It was very weird reading this book and coming across what basically turned out to be a condensed version of several topics we've already covered - oral traditions, transition to writing, printing, etc. (which is why it was so close to the typography area). I realized that there's always going to be someone else out there with similar ideas to many of our own.
In any case, I didn't get as much time to read the book as I would have liked, but if any of you are at all interested in it, go look it up in the library.
Or maybe it can be downloaded online. You never know - they do weird things with books these days.
In any case, I enjoyed another example of how important "browsing" is to us as readers. Would I have ever, in a million years, thought to look up a book like this via an electronic source?
Well, maybe, cause you'd get bored after a million years of reading, I think. But my point is that it's something that's much more likely to be stumbled upon by accident than actually searched for, unless you know what you're trying to find.
One passage I read that was kinda funny was where the author discussed the transition to newer writing utensils, and how now even these newfangled gadgets were becoming obsolete with the even-more newfangled "typewriter". (He didn't say newfangled, actually. I added that particular word. And the book is a translation in any case... But moving on) My favorite quote from that section?
"I do not doubt that soon every school boy will be carrying a little typewriter in his pocket."
Huh. Well, I laughed at first, but then I took a look at my phone...which has a little keyboard on it.
So... maybe he wasn't as far out there with that prediction as I thought at first!
How the times do change, and the mediums of knowledge change with them.
Wow what a great find! Maybe future classes will be reading this book! Thinking of the quote, his prediction probably seemed far out to him, and the people during his time, but has come to pass! (In a way...) Where do we think writing materials are going from where we are at?
ReplyDeleteI found that book too when I was doing my research for the bibliography!
ReplyDelete