This bold work responds with great originality and imagination to the problem of changing interest and technology in book making by comparing ancient design methods with modern techniques and illustrating the many ways in which books can be read and used. A blueprint for change, the volume rethinks book cultures of the past, claims that a new renaissance is just over the horizon, and shows how it will function. Combining the written word with the latest multimedia advances, this artistic masterpiece synthesizes the best of the written word from such notable writers as William Blake and Edgar Allen Poe with 860 gorgeous, full-color images from ancient and medieval cultures for a scintillating, multisensory experience. This book will have a place in the design studio, museum gift shop, classroom, and home library of art, history, and language enthusiasts.
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Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–In this gorgeous and stimulating work, a teacher presents a history of the book, printing, design, writing around the world, and computers that is easy and fun to read. This overview is the vehicle for showing off her ideas about book design and getting readers' creative juices flowing. Kirschenbaum uses color (for emphasis, for instance) as well as different font sizes and types, and incorporates paintings, drawings, and calligraphy in and around text to pique interest. She claims that when she began adding color and design to the material she assigned to her students, reluctant readers turned into eager ones, and actually wanted more. The author's approach can be especially revelatory for teens who are at the beginning of their creative lives, whether it be writing, graphic design, or art.–Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William County, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Spectacular...dares Americans to read and dream by demonstrating the importance of colorful words in the literal sense... Highly recommended." —Choice
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Overdone,
By
This review is from: Goodbye Gutenberg: How a Bronx Teacher Defied 500 Years of Tradition and Launched an Astonishing Renaissance (Designer Writers) (Hardcover)
Goodbye Gutenberg was recommended to me by an intelligent friend who has also written a glowing review of the book, but when I finally read it, I was deeply disappointed. Wholly apart from the shameless self-promotion, the extreme repetitiveness and the arrogant, ex cathedra tone, it was just plain hard to read.
The eye is assaulted on every page, and I was deeply grateful when I finally reached the 30 pages printed in Times New Roman on a white background. Just because one can write text that looks like Hebrew or Sanskrit doesn't mean people are going to want to read it. I can read Carolingian miniscule, too, but I'm never going to read a novel in it. Even her Booklady font I found hard to read. The letters are so squishy (I lack the technical terminology here) that they retreat from the eye, and I had this reaction long before I knew she had designed it herself, or that it was meant for women. I was also distracted by the errors of fact (Cassiodorus, p. 234, was NOT a Roman senator), by the quotations taken out of context, and by her comical mistranslations of Latin ("Explicit liber beati," p. 375, does NOT mean "And so ends the beautiful book.") Kirschenbaum has a good idea, without question, but her book is so overdone as to disprove the very point she is trying to make.
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Clarion Call for Change,
By Craig L. Howe "The Pointed Pundit" (Darien, CT United States) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Goodbye Gutenberg: How a Bronx Teacher Defied 500 Years of Tradition and Launched an Astonishing Renaissance (Designer Writers) (Hardcover)
About the time the author entered the first grade, I was wallowing through my Master's thesis. Separated by thirty years, we reached the same conclusion: color and design encourages learning.
Since I did my work, technology has undergone a sea-change. Ms. Kirschenbaum, a teacher, writer and designer in New York City, uses it to illustrate passages from her next day's lessons to beautiful designs. She discovered responded with increased comprehension, retention and attentiveness - not a surprise for a generation reared on television, movies, the internet and video games. She believes and effectively advocates for the return of what she terms the "designer-writer"; an artist who communicates with the written word and art. This combination has been absent since English Poet, William Blake. That is, until now. This book is truly a work of art. True to its sub-title, it represents a marriage of Art, Literature, Education and Technology. Beautifully written and illustrated, it issues a clarion call to publishers to rethink their book designs. If I had forgotten the finer points of my research years ago, reading this book refreshed the memories. I was not alone. I opted to start reading it on a multiple-leg airplane trip. The book's breathtaking illustrations quickly became the favored topic of conversation between and my traveling companions and me. As I explained the book's thesis to them, they volunteered occasions when they added color to simple messages and improved the desired response. If it was obvious to us, the point should not be lost on publishers. If the author and her publisher can profit selling this unique work of art for an undiscounted (...), it is time for anyone who labors with words to rethink their presentation.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
It's So Hard to Say Goodbye,
By
This review is from: Goodbye Gutenberg: How a Bronx Teacher Defied 500 Years of Tradition and Launched an Astonishing Renaissance (Designer Writers) (Hardcover)
Kirschenbaum's computer-generated tome is certainly a visually arresting work, and it comes with a provocative if dubious proposition: if love of learning and reading is to be dissemenated to the rising generation, it must be done so in non-traditional ways. The old venues to knowledge and pleasure provided by books are archaic. This is a brand new world. We must either adapt all our vocations and aspirations to the new ways or risk losing them altogether.
I am not sure I buy the idea. Perhaps it is the old Ludditte in me which loves the perfection of the book and automatically rejects any innovation. Wonderful as laptops and such are, there is no way to have the same sort of symbiotic relationship with them that one can have with a book. Nevertheless, mossbacks like myself may have no say in the ultimate path of knowledge. Kirschenbaum has certainly provided an attractive and interesting parry in this debate. Worth a look.
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