Audiobook6 hours
Palimpsest: A History of the Written Word
Written by Matthew Battles
Narrated by Matthew Battles
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
2.5/5
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About this audiobook
Why does writing exist? What does it mean to those who write? Born from the interplay of natural and cultural history, the seemingly magical act of writing has continually expanded our consciousness. Portrayed in mythology as either a gift from heroes or a curse from the gods, it has been used as both an instrument of power and a channel of the divine; a means of social bonding and of individual self-definition. Now, as the revolution once wrought by the printed word gives way to the digital age, many fear that the art of writing and the nuanced thinking nurtured by writing are under threat. But writing itself, despite striving for permanence, is always in the midst of growth and transfiguration.
Celebrating the impulse to record, invent, and make one's mark, Matthew Battles reenchants the written word for all those susceptible to the power and beauty of writing in all of its forms.
Celebrating the impulse to record, invent, and make one's mark, Matthew Battles reenchants the written word for all those susceptible to the power and beauty of writing in all of its forms.
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Reviews for Palimpsest
Rating: 2.3076923076923075 out of 5 stars
2.5/5
13 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This... is not a history of the written word. It's a set of miscellaneous musings on writing and on scattered moments in the history of writing, more poetic than informative and more dreamily philosophical than coherent or substantial. Which, I have to say, is really not my kind of thing. There were moments, especially early on, when one of the author's sentences would strike me as prettily insightful, and times, mostly in later chapters, when I did learn something interesting about the history of printing that I didn't know. But despite that, I mostly found it kind of frustrating, overall, and ended up more or less forcing myself to finish it.Rating: I'm calling this 2.5/5, but it's one of those books that's really hard to rate, because I am sure there are readers out there for whom this book will be perfect. It's just that I'm decidedly not one of them.
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