Customer Reviews

Goodbye Gutenberg: How a Bronx Teacher Defied 500 Years of Tradition and Launched an Astonishing Renaissance (Designer Writers)

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This highly unusual, but creative and visionary work immediately seizes the reader from the first unfolding of the crisp spine. The illustrations, layout, fonts and text, and the way in which they are integrated into a cohesive whole, are positively breathtaking. Ms. Kirschenbaum's original font is easy on the eyes, and her dedication to her work is clearly a labor of love.

Ms. Kirschenbaum's deeply personal style immediately grabs the reader, perhaps too much for those with more ascetic tastes. Yet, after just the first few pages you feel connected to this writer, and she draws you in with impassioned prose. One almost feels compelled to call the insightful author "Val", or perhaps "Mrs. K" rather than "Ms. Kirschenbaum."

With an appropriate nod to one of my favorites, William Blake, she begins a lengthy journey that takes us many places - to China, India, Tibet, and medieval Europe - and leaves us pondering the future of writing, literature, and publishing, and gasping for more. Perhaps if we are fortunate there will be more from Ms. Kirschenbaum, but certainly none precisely like this one.

This book does so many things:
1. It is, first and foremost, a unique piece of art, and is more than a book.
2. It shows a profound regard for history, but as it looks reverently beyond the past, it shows us rays of hope for literacy tomorrow.
3. It is a barely-concealed, passionate account of what it means to be a writer and reader of the first order.
4. Where are we going with information, the written word, and the way it is presented? Where is publishing going? What is publishing, exactly?

Like what eBay and Amazon have done for the masses in disintermediating the traditional middlemen, Ms. Kirschenbaum invites us to do the same in the publishing industry. In this regard, she is visionary, calling us not to be sheep who buy what the NY Times Bestsellers List tells us to purchase, but rather that which appeals most to our innermost sensibilities, toward that which is crafted for us. Looking at the state of online retail, I could see the same flattening of hierarchies happen to publishing one day. In other words, in the same way that retail pricing and other intangibles have become democratized to anyone with a computer, the truly creative and excellent works that have the potential to become a true classic (i.e. able to withstand the test of time) will naturally work their way to the top, and will not be tethered to the expectations of an overworked editor who knows he has to pimp one million copies to a populace that supposedly doesn't read. The publishing industry needs a renaissance of a different kind than online retail, however. Publishers and self-publishers need to create a renaissance in which beauty is not commoditized, as it is so often today, but respected and cherished as ends in themselves. In this sense, I think we can expect to see more works like Ms. Kirschenbaum's and fewer and fewer Tom Clancy novels that really aren't written by Tom Clancy. And that may just be the beginning of a true Renaissance in literature.

I run a small business and hardly have time to read books these days, which happens to be one of my great passions in life. Because I see lots of books every day as part of my work, I come across lots of interesting books, but none, and I mean none, like this one. It is very difficult to rip me from my work, but this book managed to do so with the greatest of ease, and even write this review as soon as I had spent a gloriously rainy afternoon pouring over its pages, cup of hot tea in hand.

The author's personal commentary reminds me of long conversations I once had with my favorite English teachers from High School, and the wonderful times we had together discussing literature, history, and personal matters during lunch and after school.

Criticism:

There is a slight overuse of font and color changes by the author to emphasize her point; this makes the point almost overstated. Yet, this is precisely the author's goal - the written word is, or perhaps should be, closer to a work of art than a corporate-approved mass-marketed piece of trash. She has self-published this work, and it is thoroughly hers. On this account, either you agree or disagree with the author's approach - but at least she has license, wherewithal, and courage to try her approach with bold aplomb. Other than stunning visuals, the sheer unconventionality of her work is perhaps her greatest strength and, perhaps also her greatest weakness. It fluctuates between unique brilliance and a slightly detectable immaturity in style from a young author. This, however, renders a very refreshing tone bereft of corporate editing and "reader's focus groups".

One might say that this work is "loopy", as it paints such broad strokes, but the author's broad vision requires such a style.

The writer engages in a bit of excessive self-promotion on the cover jacket. I find this unnecessary, for the book sells itself. It is a sad commentary on today's ad-saturated world that such a talented author should feel compelled to sell such a fascinating work in such a way.

The question in my mind, is not so much whether this particular book will trigger the Renaissance the author hopes for, but when this Renaissance will occur. Upon reading this book, I think it will happen, and it is up to independent-minded individuals, like the creative and hard-working Ms. Kirschenbaum, to trigger one.

Thank you, Valerie - this is one for the ages.

People who really enjoy books fall into two primary categories. There are those of us who revel in the enjoyment of the content, be it a novel or a treatise on the mating habits of African bees. For such a book we will happily sit for hours with an old and battered paperback whose pages have become brittle and brown as an inheritance of their high acid content paper. Perhaps some of us who cherish such books will eschew paperbacks on principle, on the grounds that their very nature is too transitory, and a good book is a book worth passing along for another to enjoy.

Thw second group of us who enjoy books, do so for their very physical nature. We enjoy beautiful text with well chosen fonts, suitable illustrations, and a binding that is worthy of these characteristics. Such volumes are often offered by publishers as sets of the 100 Best ..., bound in leather, printed on acid-free paper, with moire end papers, and gold leaf around the outside of the pages. Handling such a book is as much a sensory experience as an intellectual one.

Valerie Kirschenbaum, in her experience teaching Elementary School in the Bronx was confronted by a student's question: "How come our books are not in color like they used to be?" For some such a question might be passed off as a trivial interruption, but for Ms. Kirschenbaum it was the trigger for what has become a veritable apotheosis. You or I might have answered with something simplistic about costs of printing, and school budgets. Ms. Kirschenbaum's reaction was one of "Why not?" and this extraordinary volume was born.

Some books may be picked up, opened, read from cover to cover, and filed away. Some are designed as references into which we may dip for the jewels of knowledge we seek. Occasionally one comes into our hands that must be savored like a fine wine, in tiny sips as we are suffused with the essence of what we have just experienced. Goodbye Gutenberg is such a book.

When you first receive it in your hands, you are taken by the dustcover. At once baroque and modern, a melding of ancient calligraphy and ornamentation and decoration to match with the odd feeling that this was a picture of a computer screen -- complete with all the toolbar elements along the top.

The very feel of the dustcover is different, smooth and inviting. And when you can resist the invitation no longer, and open the cover you are met with an artistic explosion of light and color and sheer typographic eye candy -- and this is just the end paper. You know instinctively that this is going to be something good -- and it is.

Ms. Kirschenbaum has done the thing that needed to be done. She did what Johann Gutenberg did over a half millennium earlier -- she put the old prejudices aside and decided to start all over again from scratch. Gutenberg implemented the system of moveable type. In one form or another that was worked for us for a goodly time. Ms. Kirschenbaum determined that her computer and the software and resources available to it contained everything needed to create the book she envisioned, and in a staggeringly short two years, she has brought it into existence.

The other reviewers here have gone into some detail regarding the content of the book, I have endeavored to communicate its essence. If you can possibly acquire a copy of the first edition of this book, my sense is that you may want to hang on to it and guard it carefully. I can forsee the time in a not too distant future when this volume will be to publishing what the Gutenberg Bible was in its day, and you will be the proud posessor of the vanguard of that publishing renaissance.

I must give the author credit for several things, first she is a creative marketer and did a good job creating interest in her work, she is obviously resourceful and hard working. I'm not sure, however, if this work, at least in its present state, would have made the market without the use of grant monies. There are several areas to criticize and amongst the rave reviews of four and five stars one can find the same complaints couched in with praise from people that received free review copies and felt more compelled to be generous than critical.

First off; one can pick up any number of magazines, mini disposable books if you will, and find art work and photography that is more compelling and fine than what can be found here. Simply put, the computer generated artwork and cheap printing methods employed do not give beautiful results, they do however, allow amateur designers the ability to produce work, and thus the work does at least prove one of the authors points, that being that almost anybody can go out and publish a book these days, because, as she points out herself, it's so cheap to do.

Second; no matter how compelling an argument or theory is and no matter how wonderful the design and artwork and photography may be, no matter how many different colors and fonts one uses, copy must be good, in fact excellent, if one wants to be widely read. There is far too much competition, far too many good writers out there to settle for less than excellent writing, and here the work falls short. I must admit that I didn't finish reading the entire book, and if that seems unfair at first, perhaps the fact that other reviewers complain that the author repeats herself and pats her self on the back too often will at least back up my belief that there wasn't a compelling reason to finish, the gist of her point is made in the first couple of chapters.

Third; when it comes to reading fiction, I'm theorizing I'm not alone on this, people don't actually "read" the text, say in the way that one would read "see spot run" as a beginning reader. I read fiction by "absorption" if you will, sometimes taking in several words or even whole sentences at a time. I make mental pictures sometimes, but the wonderful mystery of great writing, at least when it comes to fictional novels, is the the "writing" disappears, it's simply not there. I know I'm reading less than stellar writing when the words get in the way and the text becomes obtrusive. The idea of making fiction better by adding changing colors, fonts and the like sounds not only like a bad idea it sounds like an idea that would ruin the work.

Fourth; most of the ideas she espouses, different fonts, colors and vibrant artwork are already being used where they are productive and useful, pick up any successful catalog or magazine and you'll see my point. There isn't anything new that the author espouses, she doesn't bring any original idea to the table, she only brings up the suggestion that books need to start to resembling advertising, because, she believes that will make them more compelling. She talks about how her school children get more work done and get more involved when she uses color and font changes to enhance their assignments. Unfortunately the end result of what she wants to accomplish has already happened, it's called television. Why have kids read at all, they can simply watch Romeo and Juliet in the form of moving artwork, filled with vibrant color and even sound, the one element the author doesn't insist on adding to books.

As my last point I'd merely like to state that when someone comes up with a product that's an "idea" instead of a product that's a production of that idea, they have missed the boat. I don't want to assume that a Brooklyn school teacher using grant money to produce a book is necessarily a liberal, however, it is a liberal idea and belief that the market place isn't all that's necessary to bring to bear a great idea. If the authors idea has any merit, we simply don't need a book to tell us that it has merit, the consumer will demand that the market place meet the need and the book publishers will meet that demand. Is a great idea that nobody wants really that great of an idea? Or is it perhaps that where this idea is a great idea, it's already being employed (i.e. Advertising)?

I do not harbor any ill feelings towards the author, however, being provided an advanced free copy doesn't compel me to the same type of uncritical praise I've noticed in some of the other reviews. In the authors advertising literature she proclaims that first editions often grow in value, some ceo's and presidents are scooping up dozens of copies she contents, so buy a few extra, pass them out to friends. Well, I'm sending my copy along to a friend that's a visual contractor, he designs brochures, pamphlets and the like. He's been using the techniques espoused in this work for years and he found the idea of taking these techniques into books a compelling idea. Perhaps he'll disagree with my assessment, perhaps, but in any case anyone buying this book that thinks it's a "good investment", well, I have this bridge, in Brooklyn, mind you, that I'd like to sell...

Mercilessly self-congratulatory, "Goodbye Gutenberg" takes a potentially interesting premise and proceeds to beat readers over the head with the author's self-proclaimed brilliance and prescience. Before you even crack the cover, you get: "How a Bronx Teacher Defied 500 Years of Tradition and Launched an Astonishing Renaissance." And yes, Kirschenbaum is writing about herself. (I wonder: Is it possible to give oneself the Nobel Prize?)

Kirschenbaum seems to have never seen a copy of a graphically oriented magazine such as "Wired." What's conceptually bleeding-edge to her is daily reality to others. "Gutenberg" isn't new or even novel, let alone "astonishing."

This isn't a book. It's a one-woman marketing campaign.

What is the future of the printed book? To answer that question, veteran New York City schoolteacher Kirschenbaum looks far into the past and all the way around the world.

Frustrated by her students' bored reaction to conventionally printed books, with their blocky fonts and black-and-white text, Kirschenbaum put ordinary personal computer technology to work in her classroom. Adding color alone accomplished wonders.

When she researched the history of illuminated texts, Kirschenbaum discovered that the way books have looked since the advent of movable type - since Gutenberg - isn't at all how they looked during all the centuries that came before. In the Hebrew and Arab worlds, in China, in South and Central America as well as in Europe, ancient texts glowed with color. Illustration - lavish illustration - was the rule, not the exception; and each manuscript's "font" reflected its author or copier's unique hand. All this we gave up when the Gutenberg press made mass production of books possible. Until now, we've had no reasonable alternative because books printed in color cost too much. But then came personal computers and their software. Desktop publishing programs, and color printers. We no longer need to settle for the sameness of black text, unillustrated, on a white page; and that's fortunate, because the generation of students in our high schools now does not, Kirschenbaum tells us, relate well to anything that doesn't grab and hold their visual interest.

As a former high school teacher myself (although in business, not literature), I found this book fascinating. While I don't agree with everything the author has to say - for example, I do not think that eBooks have "flopped"; I think they are only starting to demonstrate their potential - she offers her readers a vision of publishing's future that just may come true. I'm particularly intrigued by the quotations she offers from authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, who dreamed of being able to reach his readers directly and of controlling the appearance of his finished books. Self-publishing's stigma, an outcome of Gutenberg's technological revolution, seems likely to vanish as another revolution transforms the way books are created and the paths by which they reach their readers.

Once again we can look into the past, and see the future. Only a teacher could have written a book like this one! I recommend it highly to anyone who loves books, and cares about their future.

One final note: I offered to share this book with my mother, a now retired remedial reading specialist. She was unable to read it, although she wanted very much to do so, because the inks used in printing it had a strong aroma that made her ill. A shame, because I was looking forward to hearing her thoughts.

The author of Goodbye Gutenberg has created not a book, but a work of art. The richly illustrated and illuminated pages are a feast for the visual senses, and a far cry from the grayish-yellow "trade paperback" pages we have all grown accustomed to over the years.

This is truly a one-of-a-kind book; a perfect gift for the "bibliophile who has everything." The author has paved the way for a new era of book creation and publication, and I sincerely applaud her efforts!

Jill Schafer Boehme
Author of MY LIMA BEANS ARE ALLERGIC TO MY SPOON
Editor of MOMMY! The Internet Lifeline for At-home Moms

It is a sheer delight to read a book in which the author's passion and enthusiasm leaps forth from virtually every page. I was recently given the opportunity to read this book and have ambled leisurely through each page, gaining new insights for the motivation of young people, raised in a society characterized by visual bombardment, to discover or rediscover the love of learning from books. The author presents a compelling case for the development of books grow beyond the written word toward a total verbal/visual experience. However, just as impressive as Ms. Kirschenbaum's thoughtful presentation of her ideas, is the infusion of her actual person, her essence as it were, into each chapter of the book: her life, her dreams, and her passions. There are very few nonfiction books - or for that matter, many books - where so much of the author's inner being is revealed; how much more remarkable it is in a subject where one would normally expect the dry, black-and-white dustiness of academic theory. Ms. Kirschenbaum clearly has a number of fine ideas, which she conveys in a thoroughly engaging manner.

GOODBYE GUTENBERG is visually impressive, yet the particulars of the graphic design are not mere ornamentation. Rather, they have been carefully chosen to illustrate the power of communication to the reader through the use of color, font, style variation, and imagery. Too often, as the author discusses, the use of color and design have been belittled by so-called academics as mind candy for lesser-lights (my words, not hers), not appropriate for the bright or serious student. Ivory tower types, who bask in the pale light of the status-quo, view color, design and illustration as tools or gimmicks, not worthy of serious work. I often laugh when I read how these same characters, legends in their own mind, lament that their often tedious theories and works are never embraced by large numbers of people, despite their self-apparent wit and brilliance. Consider such things as home and gardening books, cookbooks, children's books and other pictorial texts. They are often richly illustrated and designed, beautiful in construction and feel - and yet are often scoffed as less sophisticated. However, these same books, precisely because of the engagement of the visual and the verbal, are picked up again and again by their owners, unlike "more serious literature," which is read once, at best, then relegated to the bookshelf (or worse, to the recycling bin).

As an aside, years ago, my mother (an occasional part-time teacher) was asked to tutor individual students who were having difficulties in reading. She brought in my old comic books and magazines. Her philosophy was to give the students something they wanted to read, so that their enthusiasm would be sparked - analogous to using newspaper and kindling to entice a reluctant campfire to a cheery blaze. Her students responded enthusiastically, "at last, something we LIKE to read." Most improved their skills dramatically and several have even become successful as educators. The author takes this simple approach - give the kids something they would like to read - to an entirely new level.

Ms. Kirschenbaum's ideas encourage the simultaneous engagement of ALL of the senses in inspiring and motivating her students. "How do we get students to WANT to read?" is the key question. She asserts that to have a lasting impact, you must communicate in the vernacular of the day. And what is this vernacular? Television, music videos, computer and video games? These are things which can stimulate all of the senses - but, because they are generally passive, often fall far short of fostering creativity and imagination. Books, because they require discipline, particularly in intellectual works, can be infinitely more rewarding - IF THEY ARE READ. The author provides both a wonderful way to write for today's author, as well as a solid methodology to encourage young readers in an ear of visual dominance.

The author's research of the use of color and design in the pre-Gutenberg and post-Gutenberg period is richly comprehensive. While she laments the decline of color and design in books, she recognizes that, as books were previously a scarce commodity for the affluent, the invention of the printing press did enable books to become available to the masses - although at a cost. Ms. Kirschenbaum notes that with the advent of computer and printing technology, color and design can easily be integrated into books, just as color, sound, and computerized special effects have taken motion pictures to incredible levels.

One particular chapter stands out. Chapter 28: Writing in the Color of the Stars is a delightful essay on the art and passion of writing from a deeply personal level. Ms. Kirschenbaum is wandering through New York City, looking at the great buildings. "Each building is a galaxy. Each window is a star. In them I see the silhouettes of young men and women, the dreamers of my generation. Their candles burn at both ends, as Edna St. Vincent Millay would like to say, but they will last, last way beyond midnight. They fill me with a sense of awe and pride; in their 20s and 30s now, they are bursting with energy and mad with ambition."

GOODBYE GUTENBERG contains remarkable insight into how to touch the lives of students, the dreamers of the next generation.