Rejoice! "The Riddle of the Labyrinth" is published
Six years in the making, the book tells the true story of the race to decipher the mysterious script from the Aegean Bronze Age known as Linear B.
For more about the book, visit any of these pages:
http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Ri...
facebook.com/riddleofthelabyrinth
twitter.com/margalitfox
For more about the book, visit any of these pages:
http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Ri...
facebook.com/riddleofthelabyrinth
twitter.com/margalitfox
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by
Hilary
(new)
May 17, 2013 06:47AM
"For those who relish languages living or dead, The Riddle of the Labyrinth should be pure heaven, as it will be for anyone obsessed with puzzles. But there is also plenty for us whose knowledge of linguistic mystery is summed up in the comedian Steven Wright’s query: Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song? You don’t have to know the intricacies of how language works or how people unriddle it to enjoy Fox’s book, although goodness knows she’s gone to great lengths to explain it all in perfectly lucid fashion—if you’re like me, you’ll have to reread a lot, but the explanations are there if you stick with it. The deciphering of Linear B solved a slew of mysteries in a single stroke. For example, by the time of Homer, around the 7th and 8th century B.C., Greek had lost its written form, and yet Homer sings of writing in his epics—now we know why. But the takeaway for the average reader is a splendid detective story that constantly wavers between success and tragedy. It’s the people in this tale, Kober and Ventris particularly, who stick with you, for theirs is a tale that inspires you even as it breaks your heart. Maybe someone could tell this story better than Fox has, but I don’t see how." Malcolm Jones, Daily Beast
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"A nose for interesting facts, the ability to construct a taut narrative arc, and a Dickens-level gift for concisely conveying personality. Fox has all three, in spades. But what really charmed me about this book is how it both describes and demonstrates the unstoppable workings of intellectual curiosity. “The pull of an undeciphered ancient script,” Fox writes, “comes not only from the fact that its discoverer cannot read it, but also from the knowledge that once, long ago, someone could.” Something similar could be said about the pull of this book. Its allure doesn’t lie only with the problem, nor only with the solution, nor even with the people who ultimately solved it. It lies in the impulse—common to all of us yet everywhere remarkable—to look at a scary, unsolved, nearly impossible problem and think: Someone could."Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine
