1 comments about The Most Mysterious Manuscript: The Voynich "Roger Bacon" Cipher Manuscript.

1. The Voynich Manuscript is a mysterious late mediæval text, written in an unknown script in an unknown language or cypher. It reads as if written fluently, not by someone who was painfully calculating each next character, but by someone who understood what he was writing. It looks like a curious herbal or alchemical treatise, full of diagrams of unknown plants, unknown constellations, and elaborate networks of plumbing inhabited by plump, naked, crowned women. The text seems to contain all the redundancies expected in a natural language and then some. It can be traced back as far as the hands of Athanasius Kircher, the Jesuit polymath, who was but the first of many to have tried and failed to read the text.
   
   

   For a time, this book was the best general overview of the history of the Voynich Manuscript. It still is a good one, though it has been superseded in that regard by Mary d'Imperio's -The Voynich Manuscript: An Elegant Enigma.-
   
   Brumbaugh proposes in this book a partial "solution" that yields texts like ILEXER ILUS YUS PURUS POURLY ILUY YJSUUS PURUS PLUS URICUS. These decipherments have the merit of seeming to read like the repetitious text of the manuscript itself. He interprets this text, though, as "The Elixir is a game, purely, purely a pure game; and European." Even if he has deciphered the script, no doubt you can probably think of other interpretations on your own.
   
   His method of reading seems to involve first turning the script into Arabic numerals, reading those numerals as any of several possible letters in the Latin alphabet. He got this by forcing letters into the script based on his attempts to identify some of the plants in the diagrams, and then attempting to extract a method of reading the characters. His decypherments are occasionally tantalising, but if this is the actual text behind the symbols, there doesn't seem to be much point in further effort. The readings appear to be flawed by the polyvalence of the script he believes he sees.

No comments about Provenance Research in Book History: A Handbook (The British Library Studies in the History of the Book).

3 comments about Front Cover: Great Book Jacket and Cover Design.

1. I am a book cover designer, and this book never seems far from my bedside. It's not a how-to, just a really great collection of book cover designs through time. Great for inspiration.



2. I ordered this book looking for some direction & inspiration while designing a book cover. It's a beautiful book, covering decades of work, with small blurbs on each book. These blurbs help clarify the subject the artist was trying to convey, which is sometimes fun to figure out.
   HOWEVER, if you're looking for a how-to book, this is not one. Maybe I should have read the other review a little better. But if you're looking for some history and inspiration, this is a great book. I'm glad I bought it, even though it's not what I was looking for.



3. A comprehensive look at book jacket design from the twenties to the nineties. The book only covers fiction and is divided into themed spreads with between five and nine covers on each. Author Powers writes detailed captions to each cover as well as providing short essays on each decade and genre. Nearly three hundred covers are shown in this well designed and printed book, none of them are angled or overlap other covers.
   
   As the title covers the last eighty years there is not much opportunity to show lots of great covers in the same style put out by some English publishers, only two examples are shown of the unique designs created by Brian Cook for Batsford in the thirties and although there are several Penguin paperbacks included you can plenty more in 'Penguin by Design' (ISBN 0713998393) by Phil Baines. An excellent visual coverage of the company that published hundreds of titles with knockout covers.
   
   Most of the jackets were designed in the UK but there is a good showing of well designed US covers. There are some pulp fiction and thriller covers apart from the literary stuff. A very similar book with 270 American covers is `Jackets Required' by Steven Heller and Seymour Chwast, covering jacket design from 1920 thru 1950 and if you have both these books it will make an excellent visual record of some of the best twentieth century fiction.
   
   Have a look at my Listmania about book jackets for more visual titles.
   
   ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

No comments about Omne Bonum: A Fourteenth-Century Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge (Studies in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art History, 18) 2-Volume Set.

No comments about The House of Forgery in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Early Modern History).

2 comments about The Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball.

1. Beautiful photos of baseball folk art and an informative text which discusses the specific pieces of art shown and the artists who created them -something many art books don't do- this book is a treat for baseball fans and art lovers, as well as a deserving CASEY Award Finalist for 2003.



2. I don't usually buy "art" books, but as a baseball fan I couldn't resist this one. I'm glad that I didn't, since I don't remember when I had so much fun with a book. Page after page surprised, entertained, and informed me. I don't know which I enjoyed more, the illustrations or the text. One intriquing aspect of the book is the way in which it ties the changing folk art and ephemera of baseball to a changing American society.

   Would I have enjoyed the book if I weren't a baseball fan? Probably. I lent my copy to a friend with an interest in art, but absolutely no interest in sports. She liked it enough to visit the show at the American Folk Art Museum. (But not enough that I could talk her into attending an actual baseball game.)

   In summary, I strongly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in EITHER baseball or folk art.

2 comments about Real Photo Postcards: Unbelievable Images from the Collection of Harvey Tulcensky.

1. I collect postcards, and any postcard collector will be drawn to similar images, the exaggerated giant ears of corn, Colonel Teddy Roosevelt, the disaster cards of train derailment, or a gathering of balloons for a race. In the collection Tulcensky' artistic eye shines in some of the unique selections: the car with lion-headed costumed riders in the back, workers at a salt mine, or a bridge of Pomeranian dogs over a child from 1908.
   
   All of the cards are "real photo" postcards, taken with a camera, and not a printing press. The postmarks in this collection are included so about half the cards are dated and range from 1901 to 1950, but probably most being 1909-1919. All are in black and white, and may include the text of the note on the postcard. The brief interview with Tulcensky reveals his interest. This book will be enjoyed not just by postcard collectors, but those interested in images taken the by the "everyman".



2. In the early 1900s, Kodak promoted real photo postcards which could be mailed for one cent through the post office using the company's first inexpensive, portable camera made for the public. Such a post card could be made out of any photograph taken by the camera. The nearly 200 real photo cards show the variety of ways the public responded to this opportunity to try out the new camera and get in touch with relatives and friends. People would send photos of parades, circuses, snowstorms, and pictures of themselves, often in playful poses or amusing settings. Some of the cards were surreal-like with their distortions in the sizes of objects; which could also be amusing, as one from Kansas where a giant cricket is attacking a car and the note, "See what we have to put up with out here." The amateurish, popular use and subjects is apparent in practically all of the photo postcards. But what is also apparent--pointed out in the brief introductory essay--is the real photo postcards' part in familiarizing the public with the camera and interesting them in its possibilities, laying the grounds for the photojournalism and the art photography of the following decades.

No comments about The Insiders Guide to Old Books Magazines Newspapers and Trade Catalogs: 21000 Items Priced by Dealers and Collectors.

No comments about Inclined Toward Magic: Encounters With Books, Collectors, and Conjurors.

2 comments about Early Paper Money of America: An Illustrated, Historical, and Descriptive Compilation of Data Relating to American Paper Currency from Its Inception in ... the Year 1800 (Early Paper Money of America).

1. This is a must for money buffs and the like.



2. Wonderful pictures, and even identification of the signers of the bills. Some signatures are hard to make out even if clearly written in dark ink due to the style of writting, but are identified here. Worth every penny!