Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.19 (555 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0393349721 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 352 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-12-29 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Bush cross paths with marks as obscure as the interrobang (?) and as divisive as the dash (). 2-color; 75 illustrations. Whether investigating the asterisk (*) and dagger (†)which alternately illuminated and skewered heretical verses of the early Bibleor the at sign (@), which languished in obscurity for centuries until rescued by the Internet, Keith Houston draws on myriad sources to chart the life and times of these enigmatic squiggles, both exotic (¶) and everyday (&).From the Library of Alexandria to the halls of Bell Labs, figures as diverse as Charlemagne, Vladimir Nabokov, and George W. Ancient Roman graffiti, Venetian trading shorthand, Cold War double agents, and Madison Avenue round out an ever more diverse set of episodes, characters, and artifacts.Richly illustrated, ranging across time, typographies, and countries, Shady Characters will delight and entertain all who cherish the unpredictable and surprising in the writing life. “An absolutely fascinating blend of history, design, sociology, and cult
Don't buy this book for Kindle The nonstandard characters used in the book render as microscopic; I can't find a fix for this, and it happens both on the Kindle Paperwhite and the Kindle Android app. The parts of the book that I can read are interesting, but I'm missing a lot with the rendering deficiency. Frankly I'm a bit shocked that . C. Ebeling said Lots of sunshine on a shady history. Not that long ago, I was reading an edition of a Shakespeare play that retained the original formatting. I stared at the punctuation and thought how very modern it was, and just as I was reminded that I've often wondered where we get these marks we use every day, along came Keith Houston with this ray of su. A fascinating survey of pilcrows, interrobangs, octothorpes, and other esoterica of typography R. M. Peterson Most of us, when reading and writing, use and mentally process a multitude of typographical symbols without thinking about them, even though we probably do not know the names for many of those marks nor how they came about. That's the arcane and overlooked, even "shady", world that Keith Houston explores in
Scarbrough, New Criterion“Fascinating.” - Rob Kyff, The Courant. “If Eats, Shoots & Leaves whetted your appetite on the subject of punctuation, then you have a treat in store. Keith Houston also explains the octothorpeotherwise known as the hashtagand and my final comment on his book is #awesome.” - Ben Yagoda, author of How to Not Write Bad“Make no mistake: this is a book of secrets. Schaffer and John Timpane, Philadelphia Inquirer“Might make you look at books… in an entirely new way.” - Andrew Robinson, Nature“Houston…is a tireless researcher and an amiable teacher.” - Jan Gardner, Boston Globe“A pleasurable contribution to type history, particularly for readers who ha
He lives in London. . Keith Houston is the author of Shady Characters and the founder of shadycharacters