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dreamofbookspines's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
5.0
Absolutely fantastic! A little is lost in ebook form, since the details and colors are absent, but this is a totally fascinating read. I kept stopping to share little tidbits with my wife and anyone else who was around/would listen. Brooke-Hitching clearly did a lot of work on this and has created something great.
melissyteapot73's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
5.0
castiellucis's review against another edition
4.0
Fun representation of amazing literary works, some of which are very well known (pleasant suprise was passage about Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis). Some of the works are so bizarre, they made me really laugh out loud. It's a shame we couldn't get more info on them, but then again it nudged me to explore them for myself.
kmac07's review against another edition
5.0
Oh my lord that is such a fun book! I learned so much and have so many strange books to buy!
jgwc54e5's review against another edition
5.0
This wonderful book is a book about books, not everyday books but the weird, the unique and the crazy. From books written in blood, or bound in skin (including human), large and tiny, beautifully illustrated and filled with all sorts of information. The chapters cover everything from science and religion, alchemy, bestiaries, codes and ciphers,grimoires, literary hoaxes and dictionaries of the vulgar tongue.
Some of my favourite bits include the fake travel books. Walter E Traprock made up a trip to south seas including a bird that laid cube shaped eggs, the picture is clearly of dice in a nest! There’s some wonderful trivia here, from Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe’s pseudonyms to weird medical treatments. There’s also a bit on mediums that channeled dead authors including Shakespeare, Dickens and Twain. One medium also channeled martians!
A great read that made me laugh too.
Some of my favourite bits include the fake travel books. Walter E Traprock made up a trip to south seas including a bird that laid cube shaped eggs, the picture is clearly of dice in a nest! There’s some wonderful trivia here, from Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe’s pseudonyms to weird medical treatments. There’s also a bit on mediums that channeled dead authors including Shakespeare, Dickens and Twain. One medium also channeled martians!
A great read that made me laugh too.
nora_nevermore's review against another edition
5.0
A book about books! A bibliophile's dream. So much wonderful information written in such an entertaining way.
kimswhims's review against another edition
5.0
The Madman's Library is probably the perfect folly to finish off a 2020 reading year.
Fabulous illustrations and written with an understated tongue in cheek scepticism that really appealed to my sense of humour. Despite reading about books created from all sorts of things, including bound in human skin and written in blood (ehhhh- that's the sound of me making a face through a whole chapter of icky things). It covers an enormous amount of ground. Filled to the brim with interesting titbits about books written in code and Cryptic books. Literary hoaxes and curious collections. Some of the supernatural books, religious books and Science curiosities were as fanciful as each other and probably could have been interchanged in Chapters.
Back to my not so much mad library it goes.... it's not overdue at least :D
Fabulous illustrations and written with an understated tongue in cheek scepticism that really appealed to my sense of humour. Despite reading about books created from all sorts of things, including bound in human skin and written in blood (ehhhh- that's the sound of me making a face through a whole chapter of icky things). It covers an enormous amount of ground. Filled to the brim with interesting titbits about books written in code and Cryptic books. Literary hoaxes and curious collections. Some of the supernatural books, religious books and Science curiosities were as fanciful as each other and probably could have been interchanged in Chapters.
Back to my not so much mad library it goes.... it's not overdue at least :D