Palimpsest a history of the written word
by Battles, Michael
pub. by W.w. Norton, NY. 2015       isbn 978-0 393 05885 7 - - Forward Mind as Page p. 1-4 - - Notes on Sources p. 227-238 - - Illustration credits p. 239-240 , Index p. 241-262 - - 262 p. total

This book was a difficult read. The author seemed to wander about in his mind for the first few chapters. in Origins and Nature he revealed that the reed (which was the instrument of writing was the beginning of writing, even on clay and the Egyptian god Thoth, an ibis whose footprints on wet clay wrote thoughts. It was not what I expected. Things settled down in the Pictures and things chapter when he discussed Chinese and cuneiform writing.
The Logos ex machina chapter has some interesting items on computer code and also some detail on how ASCII was created and Unicode fonts including for cuneiform.

  Chapters -
    Books in running Brooks
    Origins and nature
    Picures and things
    Writing and power
    Holy Writ
    Logos ex machina
    Afterword - Page as mind

On the whole I got some interesting information, but probably would have found the same information more directly elsewhere.
~ 2016-06-22 ~



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