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A review by brogan7
Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World by Irene Vallejo
adventurous
hopeful
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
5.0
This is a book about the history of books for book lovers written by a lover of books.
I especially liked the Ancient Greece part of the book. I love how she talks about ancient classics as though they are contemporary, she brings life to ancient stories and she so clearly loves books herself.
Although the text is information heavy, it reads very smoothly especially for the first two thirds. I had never thought about how books were first conceived of (long before the printing press) and when we started putting titles on the cover and spines.
Vallejo's attention to detail is inspiring and she manages to write a non-fiction book that really elevates fiction and that makes you feel like you've entered that other world of books and in the same moment, you are standing at the very threshold, she brings awareness to that place between this world and the Other world of reading...
She also manages to very unobtrusively communicate a progressive, egalitarian world view and to pursue it throughout history, looking for the untold stories, the unknown authors, and the journey to tolerance and humanism through history.
I especially liked the Ancient Greece part of the book. I love how she talks about ancient classics as though they are contemporary, she brings life to ancient stories and she so clearly loves books herself.
Although the text is information heavy, it reads very smoothly especially for the first two thirds. I had never thought about how books were first conceived of (long before the printing press) and when we started putting titles on the cover and spines.
Vallejo's attention to detail is inspiring and she manages to write a non-fiction book that really elevates fiction and that makes you feel like you've entered that other world of books and in the same moment, you are standing at the very threshold, she brings awareness to that place between this world and the Other world of reading...
She also manages to very unobtrusively communicate a progressive, egalitarian world view and to pursue it throughout history, looking for the untold stories, the unknown authors, and the journey to tolerance and humanism through history.