Customer Reviews

The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe Between the 14th and 18th Centuries

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I have to also agree the that the summary review of The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe by vivesearthlink.net is unjust.
Stanford has a history of publishing critical pieces on this topic and this work is up to its usual standards, even if it is not a usual history by normal standards. But to dismiss it with contempt because it doesn't reach down to your level or cover things in the way you expect is the, I think ridiculous of an author. There are plenty of books on literacy (Graff, for example ) that will do that in a much more straightforward manner.
Give the author a chance to make his case and or don't read it at all.

I want to respond to the obnoxious review that vives@earthlink.net made of this book. I found The Order of Books to be informative, exciting, lucid, and memorable. The implication that it is stylistically opaque or excessively academic is unjust and untrue. This book says a great deal about the history of reading and its social settings. Any student, bibliophile, or patron of libraries will enjoy and profit from it.

There is only one strong paragraph in this mercifully short, dissatisfying book...a quotation from Borges.When you reach that paragraph you straighten up like a passenger whose car has just passed from a rutted dirt track to a paved road. Constant homage is paid to various mentors and proteges in that "I'll footnote you if you footnote me" way.A certain kind of French cul de sac...if only they esteemed their subject as much as one another.Sample sentence: "The multifaceted return of the author in critical problematics takes us back to the question that Foucault posed...." Daddy are we there yet?

There is only one strong paragraph in this mercifully short, dissatisfying book...a quotation from Borges.When you reach that paragraph you straighten up like a passenger whose car has just passed from a rutted dirt track to a paved road. Constant homage is paid to various mentors and proteges in that "I'll footnote you if you footnote me" way.A certain kind of French cul de sac...if only they esteemed their subject as much as one another.Sample sentence: "The multifaceted return of the author in critical problematics takes us back to the question that Foucault posed...." Daddy are we there yet?