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litelbokewyrm's review against another edition
5.0
The part of Letter Perfect that made me laugh out loud: (This is from Chapter G): "The G spot—a small region of female sexual sensitivity, distinct from the clitoris and located somewhere along the vagina's front wall—is named for German gynecologist Ernst Grafenberg, who announced its existence in writings of 1950s. Since then, generations of husbands and boyfriends have failed to find it."
Fantastic book, one that I will reference and reread parts of. I was not overly fond of the formatting, though. There was a lot of information, often so much that David Sacks had to go off on tangents, and these tangents would be in separate boxes. The problem was that these boxes would cut off the main text, interrupting my reading. I also had issues with the font in these boxes of information; it didn't read as smoothly as I would like, and the long captions for images depicting the evolution of letters would be italicized and difficult to read. Otherwise, this is a great, great book.
Fantastic book, one that I will reference and reread parts of. I was not overly fond of the formatting, though. There was a lot of information, often so much that David Sacks had to go off on tangents, and these tangents would be in separate boxes. The problem was that these boxes would cut off the main text, interrupting my reading. I also had issues with the font in these boxes of information; it didn't read as smoothly as I would like, and the long captions for images depicting the evolution of letters would be italicized and difficult to read. Otherwise, this is a great, great book.
beccakatie's review against another edition
2.0
This book was an interesting overview into how the alphabet developed to become the one we recognise today. It was great to have the letter formations included so you could track its progress, and the way the book was laid out with a chapter for each letter was particularly effective.
However, I felt some parts of it a little repetitive due to this layout, with the majority of letters having the same path to today. Additionally, the extra boxes of information were just as disruptive as they were informative, breaking up the main body of the text, sometimes for multiple pages.
However, I felt some parts of it a little repetitive due to this layout, with the majority of letters having the same path to today. Additionally, the extra boxes of information were just as disruptive as they were informative, breaking up the main body of the text, sometimes for multiple pages.
kiramke's review against another edition
1.0
I received this book from someone who didn't finish it, on the chance that I would.
I won't.
Me, reading:
Oh, this chapter is quickly interrupted by an inset. A seven page inset? Well let's find the rest of my paragraph and finish it. Right, now back to the inset. Hang on, this inset is interrupted mid-paragraph by a 2 page nested inset! Alright, let's finish that paragraph and the rest of the inset, then the nested inset... now, where was I? Right, page three of the actual chapter.
I assume these special boxes and graphics are to break up the text and keep the reader going, as in a textbook. After all, who would want to read a whole long chapter on lexicography? But the answer is: me. I'm an adult and no one is forcing me to read; I chose to be here, you don't have to trick me into staying.
The problems with these sidebars are many. Much of the history is here, but broken up and spread throughout the chapters, so that often it seems to have at best a tangential relationship to the chapter topic (here I am in the chapter on 'B', reading about the Etruscan lack of the vowel 'O'). Also, the smaller / more nested the box, the more the font changes. It's awful hard to read lightly shaded 8 point italic when we're talking about individual letters. Is that a lowercase k? a b? Wait is it a Hebrew character? For fun I showed someone the (tiny) map of Phoenician territories and asked them to read a place name for me - any place shown. They couldn't. Maybe that information isn't important - but then why include the map at all? Finally, each separate narrative - chapter text, inset, nested graphic - seems to assume that I won't read the others, and is thus increasingly repetitive. Unfortunately the most interesting details have been in the sidebars, and without them the chapters are only maybe 8 pages long, so I'd have to keep reading them.
My biggest grievance is in the tone. Too often it's assumed that avoiding technical terms is the way to make a book 'accessible.' Let's say you introduce the concept of a glottal stop. You explain the sound, and when it's used, and that we don't have it consistently our language or in our orthography, but others do, etc... thereafter, you can refer to it as a glottal stop. Refusing to, or calling it some weird unidentifiable other sound thingy or whatever, does not make your text accessible or lively, it just makes me think you think I'm stupid. And maybe I expect more scholarly speech from linguistic books, but I don't think that's the problem. Yes, there's an extra annoyance when I already know the terms, but I've run into this in various other books on topics in which I'm hardly an expert, and it bothers me every time.
All that being said, I do applaud the interest and research. This might be a decent book for a very casual reader or someone hunting for cocktail tidbits. And I might look up one or two topics that I'd like to read more about - I just won't read them here.
I won't.
Me, reading:
Oh, this chapter is quickly interrupted by an inset. A seven page inset? Well let's find the rest of my paragraph and finish it. Right, now back to the inset. Hang on, this inset is interrupted mid-paragraph by a 2 page nested inset! Alright, let's finish that paragraph and the rest of the inset, then the nested inset... now, where was I? Right, page three of the actual chapter.
I assume these special boxes and graphics are to break up the text and keep the reader going, as in a textbook. After all, who would want to read a whole long chapter on lexicography? But the answer is: me. I'm an adult and no one is forcing me to read; I chose to be here, you don't have to trick me into staying.
The problems with these sidebars are many. Much of the history is here, but broken up and spread throughout the chapters, so that often it seems to have at best a tangential relationship to the chapter topic (here I am in the chapter on 'B', reading about the Etruscan lack of the vowel 'O'). Also, the smaller / more nested the box, the more the font changes. It's awful hard to read lightly shaded 8 point italic when we're talking about individual letters. Is that a lowercase k? a b? Wait is it a Hebrew character? For fun I showed someone the (tiny) map of Phoenician territories and asked them to read a place name for me - any place shown. They couldn't. Maybe that information isn't important - but then why include the map at all? Finally, each separate narrative - chapter text, inset, nested graphic - seems to assume that I won't read the others, and is thus increasingly repetitive. Unfortunately the most interesting details have been in the sidebars, and without them the chapters are only maybe 8 pages long, so I'd have to keep reading them.
My biggest grievance is in the tone. Too often it's assumed that avoiding technical terms is the way to make a book 'accessible.' Let's say you introduce the concept of a glottal stop. You explain the sound, and when it's used, and that we don't have it consistently our language or in our orthography, but others do, etc... thereafter, you can refer to it as a glottal stop. Refusing to, or calling it some weird unidentifiable other sound thingy or whatever, does not make your text accessible or lively, it just makes me think you think I'm stupid. And maybe I expect more scholarly speech from linguistic books, but I don't think that's the problem. Yes, there's an extra annoyance when I already know the terms, but I've run into this in various other books on topics in which I'm hardly an expert, and it bothers me every time.
All that being said, I do applaud the interest and research. This might be a decent book for a very casual reader or someone hunting for cocktail tidbits. And I might look up one or two topics that I'd like to read more about - I just won't read them here.
nwhyte's review
http://nhw.livejournal.com/490899.html[return][return]I was disappointed. The book can't quite decide whether it's a serious investigation of the history of orthography or a collection of fun trivia snippets. I did learn a lot about the first Semitic alphabet, from which most others are descended, and its descent to us through the Phoenicians, Greeks, Etruscans, Romans and French. But I was disappointed not to learn more about other alphabets than ours - especially the Georgian script which as most of you will know fascinates me. (Does the Georgian
ejdecoster's review against another edition
2.0
While the information in this book was interesting, it could have used another round of editing. Compiled from a series of essays written for a Canadian newspaper, a lot of the source materials for quotations and examples were repetitive, and whole chunks of information were reiterated in every other chapter. There were whole sidebars to the book printed in size 8 italicized font, a pain to read even for somebody with good eyesight. Many of the examples provided by the author might be appropriate for a newspaper, but cause the book to seem extremely dated. And, of course, there were some unnecessary and weird side comments about the g-spot and drug use.
psalmcat's review against another edition
5.0
This looked interesting when it came through the cataloging pile at work. It traces the history of writing from Phoenician (or pre-Phoenician even) through Greek, Etruscan, and Roman writing all the way past the Middle Ages and movable type to now.
There are very very interesting details about each letter. It's interesting to know that a mere 200 years ago the English alphabet had only 24 letters: J and U were absent, at least in an official capacity as separate letters. The author discusses fonts (Goudy, Times New Roman, etc.) and "voiced velar stops" (that would be a 'G') and combines all this into a tasty stew of letters and history.
How much more fun can I have??
There are very very interesting details about each letter. It's interesting to know that a mere 200 years ago the English alphabet had only 24 letters: J and U were absent, at least in an official capacity as separate letters. The author discusses fonts (Goudy, Times New Roman, etc.) and "voiced velar stops" (that would be a 'G') and combines all this into a tasty stew of letters and history.
How much more fun can I have??
mostlyshanti's review against another edition
3.0
The main problem with this book is that it wasn't as interesting as I though it would be. I feel like Sacks could have done a lot with creating a cohesive flow, but it would have worked better as a serial series in a newspaper (which is how it originally started). While some of the facts were interesting, I felt like the story of the alphabet for each letter was basically repeated over and over, and so information- for example, I think he informed us what the unical style was about 20 times- was unecessarily repeated, and long, info heavy box sections just interrupted the flow of the text.
bookwormmichelle's review against another edition
4.0
Very interesting! Traces the history of each letter of the alphabet through time. Loved it!
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