Book Of The Book, A

by Jerome Rothenberg, Steven Clay (Contributor)

By Jerome Rothenberg. Contributions by Steven Clay.

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, Essays, Writing

580 pages, Hardcover

First published November 2, 1999

About the author

Jerome Rothenberg is an internationally known American poet, translator and anthologist who is noted for his work in ethnopoetics and poetry performance.

Reviews

[Kit Kincade · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not like it. The editors couldn't decide what they wanted it to be-commentary on the book as a physical object of art, langauge as art, lit crit thinly veiled as book discusion, history of writing, language, or a variety of odes to the book.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

On the one hand, this book provides a useful factual and historic background into futurist and contemporary attempts to manipulate and self-consciously play with the form of the book. However, where this book does not shine is in its utter lack of engagement with any theoretical ideas regarding the book object. In fact, the editors note they've purposefully minimized the references and notes included in many of their selections, in attempt to improve the accessibility of the volume. While I'm all for accessible academic writing, I don't think that it needs to be mutually exclusive from researched/cited writing, nor do I think that theory has no role to play in the average person's understanding of material books. A few selections in this volume (particularly in the first and last sections) were worth the time, but it was overall a disappointment for such a massive tome. And although I appreciated the attempts to include information regarding books and writing from all over the world and from all different disciplinary/professional perspectives, the lack of background information about the selections made many of them impenetrable.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisitely compiled.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing! It has everything from book art, to histories of contracts and literacy. It's very neat