The power of writing to influence and dominate is, indeed, a central theme in this history, as Martin explores the processes by which the written word has gradually imposed its logic on society over four thousand years.

Italo Calvino's classic, multifaceted novel about writing and readers.

"With a new chapter on Google and the digital future"--Cover.

This work asks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. The text explores when the coffee-table book became an object of scorn, and why law courts forbade witnesses to kiss the Bible.

He argues that 'good reading', like moral action or religious experience, involves surrender to the work in hand and a process of entering fully into the opinions of others.

DIV A literary master’s entertaining guide to reading with deeper insight, better understanding, and greater pleasure /div

Set in the future when "firemen" burn books forbidden by the totalitarian "brave new world" regime.

This book identifies three deeply seated fears: fear of insurrection, fear of blasphemy, and fear of pornography.

It explores the extent of literacy in early Christian communities; the relation in the early church between oral tradition and written materials; the physical form of early Christian books; how books were produced, transcribed, published, ...

' In those days, it thrilled me that my small corner of the Bronx was just a one part of the vastness I could see in the sky at night. This is the feeling I got from reading A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge.