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

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

    • 4.5 • 8 Ratings
    • $14.99
    • $14.99

Publisher Description

“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.

GENRE
Professional & Technical
RELEASED
2013
September 24
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
352
Pages
PUBLISHER
W. W. Norton & Company
SELLER
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
SIZE
13.3
MB

Customer Reviews

Clint Arthemis Golub ,

Highly informative & entertaining.

Keith Houston's succinct, yet highly enlightening first book is an awesome read if linguistically histories, typographical studies, or vocabulary study in general interest you. Each eponymous chapter will cover a mark of punctuation that's typically ubiquitous in culture and in print (e.g. %,£,&,#) and then delve into relating terms, symbols and other miscellaneous information before concluding with a satisfying close. Some choices such as the Pilcrow are more of a curiosity investigation, which isn't to say that these sections aren't excellent as well; everything that's chosen for this book all seem like exceedingly worthy candidates from a much longer list of seemingly hieroglyphic marks. Ultimately though, it's the authors passion and beautiful love of the written word that make Shady Characters such a joy to read, I highly recommend even if you've nothing more than a passing fancy in these types of books. It's truly something that will remain with you long after you read it, for its subject matter is inescapably all around us ;)

More Books by Keith Houston

The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time
2016
Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator
2023

Customers Also Bought

Describer's Dictionary: A Treasury of Terms & Literary Quotations (Expanded Second Edition) Describer's Dictionary: A Treasury of Terms & Literary Quotations (Expanded Second Edition)
2014
Paper Paper
2013
Inventing English Inventing English
2015
The Biology Book The Biology Book
2015
The Science of Everyday Life The Science of Everyday Life
2011
Babel Babel
2018