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"Papyrus is an enthralling journey through the history of books and libraries in the ancient world and those who have helped preserve their rich literary traditions. Long before books were mass-produced, those made of reeds from along the Nile were worth fighting and dying for. Journeying along the battlefields of Alexander the Great, beneath the eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, at Cleopatra's palaces and the scene of Hypatia's murder, award-winning author Irene Vallejo chronicles the excitement of literary culture in the ancient world, and the heroic efforts that ensured this extraordinary tradition would continue. Weaved throughout are fascinating stories about the spies, scribes, illuminators, librarians, booksellers, authors, and statesmen whose rich and sometimes complicated engagement with the written word bears remarkable similarities to the world today: Aristophanes and the censorship of the humorists, Sappho and the empowerment of women's voices, Seneca and the problem of a post-truth world. Vallejo takes us to mountainous landscapes and the roaring sea, to the capitals where culture flourished and the furthest reaches where knowledge found refuge in chaotic times. In this sweeping tour of the history of books, the wonder of the ancient world comes alive and, along the way, we discover the singular power of the written word"--… (more)
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from Papyrus by Irene Vallejo
What a delightful book! The book is as gorgeous as the writing, so I looked forward to holding it and reading it every night. It took me on a journey back in time, to the first letters and first writing, to soft clay tablets that could be smoothed over, to the papyrus scrolls that ancient Egypt exported across the known world, to parchment and codices. What was in those fragile books, how they were preserved or destroyed, sheltered in libraries or lost in war or in conflagrations spurred by anger. It traces Western heritage from the Greeks, whose culture was adopted by the Romans (who were better at war than philosophy.)
This is the serious book lover’s dream of a book, wide ranging across time and topics, but always coming back to the attachment we have to books, their power to reach across time and space. Librarians are liberal heroes, in the past and today; our own local librarian watches people scan the shelves, bringing their complaints, pressuring the offerings to conform to their truth. In the ancient world, booksellers were punished for the books they sold. Books are dangerous things! They hold ideas and ideals that challenge the status quo.
Vallejo begins with a journey, thousands of years ago, when brave men crossed the world and risked everything to bring rare manuscripts back to Ptolemy for his library in Alexandrea. And she ends with the loss of literacy after the fall of Rome, and their revival with the printing press. Books no longer had to be hand copied by slaves, distributed to the few.
How my mind soared while reading, filled with insight–there is so much packed into this volume! It’s a book to return to, for the beautiful writing, and the knowledge, the sheer pleasure of reading it.
I received a free book from A. A. Knopf. My review is fair and unbiased.
This is a very wide-ranging, fitful, episodic exploration of the development of writing and preservation of knowledge in books and how they were made available.
There's two large sections of the work, Greek and Roman, with the Greek really much more about Alexandria and
If there's a unifying theme of the work it's the dynamic of the written word: what it has allowed and facilitated, the limitations of the craft, its marketing, its place in society, literacy levels, etc.
There's a lot of interesting and insightful information here. But it's a lot longer than you might think it is, and the information presented is far more stream-of-consciousness or according to the author's whim than anything resembling a coherent, linear progression.
**--galley received as part of early review program