Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks Book Reviews

AUTHOR
Keith Houston
SCORE
4.5
TOTAL RATINGS
180

Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks by Keith Houston Book Summary

“An absolutely fascinating blend of history, design, sociology, and cultural poetics—highly recommended.”—Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
A charming and indispensable tour of two thousand years of the written word, Shady Characters weaves a fascinating trail across the parallel histories of language and typography.
Whether investigating the asterisk (*) and dagger (†)—which alternately illuminated and skewered heretical verses of the early Bible—or 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. Bush cross paths with marks as obscure as the interrobang (?) and as divisive as the dash (—). 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.

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Book Name Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks
Genre Language Arts & Disciplines
Published
Language English
E-Book Size 12.65 MB

Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks (Keith Houston) Book Reviews 2024

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Keith Houston - Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks Discussions & Comments

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Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks E-book (PDF, PUB, KINDLE) Download

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Summary of Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks by Keith Houston

The Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks book written by Keith Houston was published on 24 September 2013, Tuesday in the Language Arts & Disciplines category. A total of 180 readers of the book gave the book 4.5 points out of 5.

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