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tmobil's review against another edition
4.0
Favorite Quotes
Quite amazing how determined kings and emperors have been to destroy books. But civilization is built on such desecrations, is it not? Justinian the Great burned all of the Greek scrolls in Constantinople after he codified the Roman law and drove the Ostrogoths from Italy. And Shih Huang Ti, the first Emperor of China, the man who unified the five kingdoms and built the Great Wall, decreed that every book written before he was born should be destroyed.
…Because every ruler celebrated his conquests by setting torch to the nearest library. Did not Julius Caesar incinerate the scrolls in the great library at Alexandria during his campaign against the republicans in Africa? Or General Stilicho, leader of the Vandals, order the burning of the Sybillene prophecies in Rome?
There was nothing so dangerous to a king or an emperor as a book. Yes, a great library—a library as magnificent as this one—was a dangerous arsenal, one that kings and emperors feared more than the greatest army or magazine.
Quite amazing how determined kings and emperors have been to destroy books. But civilization is built on such desecrations, is it not? Justinian the Great burned all of the Greek scrolls in Constantinople after he codified the Roman law and drove the Ostrogoths from Italy. And Shih Huang Ti, the first Emperor of China, the man who unified the five kingdoms and built the Great Wall, decreed that every book written before he was born should be destroyed.
…Because every ruler celebrated his conquests by setting torch to the nearest library. Did not Julius Caesar incinerate the scrolls in the great library at Alexandria during his campaign against the republicans in Africa? Or General Stilicho, leader of the Vandals, order the burning of the Sybillene prophecies in Rome?
There was nothing so dangerous to a king or an emperor as a book. Yes, a great library—a library as magnificent as this one—was a dangerous arsenal, one that kings and emperors feared more than the greatest army or magazine.
rayn0n's review against another edition
5.0
Gothic romance meets Indiana Jones meets 17th century history lesson meets Everything you could Ever Want To Know About Books - but in the absolutely best way.
prof_shoff's review against another edition
2.0
I kept waiting for this to capture my attention. It didn't.
scribal's review
3.0
In this edition PAGES 121-152 ARE MISSING!! And pages 153-184 are repeated. I ask other readers who have different editions to check ...perhaps your copy is similarly defective??
I quite enjoyed the first 120 pages. 17th-century northern Europe is not my favorite subject but I know it well and did not find the end of English Civil War period or the beginnings of the Thirty Year War in the Germanic states particularly "obscure."
I'm really curious how many editions are misprinted and if that has affected the perceptions of this book.
I quite enjoyed the first 120 pages. 17th-century northern Europe is not my favorite subject but I know it well and did not find the end of English Civil War period or the beginnings of the Thirty Year War in the Germanic states particularly "obscure."
I'm really curious how many editions are misprinted and if that has affected the perceptions of this book.
librarianonparade's review against another edition
3.0
This is exactly the kind of novel I love - an engrossing historical literary thriller. I love historical fiction, and I love books about books, and this is both, which is probably why I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I must admit, I was hoping the mysterious manuscript would be something slightly more than what it was, but that's the thrill-seeker in me. I did find the ending a little anti-climatic, but that's a minor quibble, really.
bookthia's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 stars. I wanted to like this book so much more. It started out so promising and I really liked the main character, bookish and bumbling Isaac Inchbold. But the author includes a confused backstory (that could have been one chapter and not ten), an overuse of didactic historical fact telling, and too many loose ends that lead nowhere. Who were the 3 riders in black? What does the horned symbol mean? Who killed Plessington? Why did Alethea lie? Combine these with an unsatisfactory mystery that was only somewhat resolved, the result is a unfulfilling reading experience.
abookishtype's review against another edition
3.0
Isaac Inchbold, the humble proprietor of Nonsuch books, is an unlikely hero for a novel that takes us into an international fight for possession of ancient and secret knowledge. Even at the beginning of Ross King’s Ex-Libris, Inchbold would have told you that nothing very interesting should have happened to him. But then a summons from a mysterious aristocratic Lady pulls him from his cozy shop and away from his pipe. Before long, Inchbold is dodging deadly men in black doublets, coughing his lungs out in shabbily organized archives, and following clues to try and find a previously unknown volume of the corpus Hermeticum...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.
alijc's review against another edition
3.0
A generally favorable impression. Quibbles were the book's DanBrownishness, and the sometimes jarring transistions between 1st and 3rd person. What was appreciated was King's acceptance of the intelligence of his readers, and the great sense of place in the book. (I had found some prints of Nonsuch House on the internet and brought them to the meeting. It was surprising to me how big it was - four stories tall and completely overarching London Bridge, and extending far past the width of the bridge.)