A Book of the Book: Some Works and Projections about the Book & Writing

by Jerome Rothenberg (Editor), Steven Clay (Editor)

"A collection for the general reader and the specialist, A Book of the Book is an accessible and erudite set of readings on the book as a mythic and material object. These texts comprise a vivid exploration of the poetics of the book, a multifaceted study nurtured by the literary and ethnographic scope of its editors' vision, that argues compellingly for the continued survival of this most mundane and metaphoric of artifacts. In a moment when irresponsibly inflammatory ravings about the demise of print rage through the cultural landscape, this collection offers serious reflection upon the real profundity of the book as a symbolic force within the poetic and spiritual imagination that remains the wellspring of human culture. Drawn from diverse realms-of avant-garde art, anthropology, textual criticism, literature, and speculative thought-this will be the definitive collection for decades to come-a volume whose very physical presence in the hand performs the rhetoric of its pages in offering its riches to the reader." - Johanna Drucker
A Book of the Book is broken down into four "Pre-faces" includes work by Rothenberg, Steve McCaffery, & bp Nichol, Keith A. Smith, Michael Davidson, Anne Waldman, Jacques Derrida, Edmond Jabès (translated by Rosmarie Waldrop), among others; "The Opening of the Field" includes work by Gertrude Stein, William Blake, Susan Howe, Maurice Blanchot, Marjorie Perloff, André Breton and Jerome McGann among others; "The Book is as Old as Fire & Water" includes work on Guruwari designs, novelty books, pattern poetry, celestial alphabets, among others, while "The Book to Come" presents work by Tom Phillips, Johanna Drucker, Alison Knowles, Charles Bernstein, Jess (a complete re-issue of his 1960 work 'O!'), Ian Hamilton Finlay, Barbara Fahrner and many others.

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, Essays, Writing

580 pages, Paperback

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