Claim Now The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts And Other Literary Curiosities From History Assembled By Edward Brooke-Hitching In Document

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هذا الكتاب هو بالضبط ما تتوقعون من العنوان. موسوعة لتاريخ أغرب وأعجب الكتب. فهناك فصول عن كتب ليست كتبا وكتب مصنوعة من اللحم والدم البشري وكتب مرمزة وكتب مزيفة وكتب دينية وخرارقة للطبيعة وكتب بمختلف الأحجام غير المتوقعة وغيرها. الكتب يبدو عليه أسلوب البحث المكثف والتنقل من مثال لآخر كان سلسل وأسلوب الكتابة لم يكن معقدا. أنصحه لمحبي تاريخ الكتب ولهواة القراءة عن التاريخ العجيب والمثير للأشياء.

This book was exactly what it promised, An Encyclopedia of all different and bizarre books, There are books that aren't "books" in the sense we know of them now, books made of flesh and blood, cryptic books, hoaxes, supernatural and religious books, books of different irregular sizes and more.
The research that went into this book was apparent and the segway from one example to another was smooth, I really enjoyed this book and took my time reading it, as I really didn't want all of the chapters to blend together, I'd recommend for fans of strange and weird books and those interested in the history of books themselves,

I thank Netgalley for the digital ARC, This is simply a beautiful book with full page color photos of some of the most unusual and extremely rare books, scrolls, etc, in the world. In, a group named Project Ocean began their attempt to collect the titles of every book in existence until they reached a billion plus figure, So many more are knownsuch as Shakespeare's First Folio but were forever destroyed in natural disasters, the Great Fire of London, and deliberate destruction such as book burning,

In this book, the author has searched out the most amazing extant books in the world with pictures and their histories, He divides the book into interesting categories, such as: books made of flesh and blood, works of the supernatural, books of spectacular size, literary hoaxes, and many more, His narrative flows easily and often is written with humor, He also provides a list of strange titles which made me chuckle, Would you like to read "Old Age the Cause and Prevention", or maybe "A Handbook on Hanging"

A lovely book for the lover of books and their history.
Highly recommended. The Madman's Library is probably the perfect folly to finish off areading year,
Fabulous illustrations and written with an understated tongue in cheek scepticism that really appealed to my sense of humour, Despite reading about books created from all sorts of things, including bound in human skin and written in blood ehhhh that's the sound of me making a face through a whole chapter of icky things.
It covers an enormous amount of ground, Filled to the brim with interesting titbits about books written in code and Cryptic books, Literary hoaxes and curious collections, Some of the supernatural books, religious books and Science curiosities were as fanciful as each other and probably could have been interchanged in Chapters,
Back to my not so much mad library it goes, it's not overdue at least :D
Fun representation of amazing literary works, some of which are very well known pleasant suprise was passage about Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis, Some of the works are so bizarre, they made me really laugh out loud, It's a shame we couldn't get more info on them, but then again it nudged me to explore them for myself, BrookeHitching has compiled a fascinating collection of the obscure, the odd, and the overthetop outrageous in history of the written word, Without delving too deeply into the technicalities of production through the years, the reader still gets an informative overview of the development of the codex,

Most interesting to me were the chapters covering books with cryptic writing and literary hoaxes because I love a good puzzle and a good joke, The last chapter on amusing titles was good for a chuckle,

The best part of the book were the colorful photos of these books of history, Madmans Library is generously filled with pictures allowing readers to fully appreciate the artistry and craftsmanship of the past, It is no wonder that books have been cherished and revered by so many,

I read my ARC electronically on Adobe Digital Reader thank you Netgalley, I look forward to purchasing this in hardback, Some things to note about the ebook in the version I read: i couldnt read on phone or tablet as file was too large, I had to be at my computer ii could not adjust page view for easy reference, This needs a side by side page option so that one can look at the photos of the book being describedable to glance back and forth rather than scroll up and down.
The newspaper style columns of text on the page were also irritating on an ereader as I had to read down one column, scrolling down, and then scroll back up to read the next column.
The font was too small for me to read comfortably and keep the page small enough to fit on the screen without scrolling,

So, approach thoughtfully with an ereader but I still have no hesitation in giving this/stars, Many thanks to Netgalley and Chronicle Books for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review,

I need this book in my vicinity, like physically, I need it to exist in my book shelves asap, I'm so buying the hardback and rereading it, I loved it so so much, it was filled to the brim with awesome, funny, scary horrifying facts, I was left dumbfounded after each reading session,
My favorite story was the story of the war prisoner Peter Moen,
I found "The Japanese farting competitions" hilarious, and the human skin book binding the most horrifying, Had a sneak peek to the French revolution's atrocities with that maid pants story and smiled at the authors at the hoax section of the book, Totally fascinating and utterly stupendous, This book lists manuscripts and books from as early asBC and there are pictures, lots of them, There is hardly anything mad about this book but it is amazing how man has always wanted to make a mark in the world,

This will make a great coffee table book, The author has done a massive amount of research and the result shows,

Thanks to Netgalley, Edward BrookeHitching, and Chronicle Books for the ARC, This rather astonishing book of historical literary curiosities will provide much to amuse and marvel at for anyone interested in the range and depth of human capabilities and surely that is all of us!.


The book is lavishly illustrated throughout, with each illustration accompanied by its explanatory box and simply perusing through those will provide hours of pleasure The Introduction provides us with the authors story of his own interest in this subjectmatter, and lays out the basis for the organisation of the remainder of the book.


The writing is pragmatic and relatively straightforward although I would have preferred if the editors had provided more consideration to the sectional aspects of this, through the use, perhaps, of judicious boldface openings to the various subsections to assist the reader but this is a minor quibble.
BrookeHitchings cool, rather detached style should not alienate: there is much, much more in the written aspects for each chapter, specifically many stories and anecdotes that widen the perspective.
And every now and then there is the authors rather sly sense of humour that peeps through with wry comments and asides

Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of all of this is the extent to which the human mind can range: from the gruesome, the most grotesque, the most beautiful, the most outrageous, the most obsessive, the most insane the list goes on and on.
Here also are the contenders for the smallest books ever published, the longest novel so far written, and for physically gargantuansized books, Some of these would also require technological marvels of ingenuity and expertise needed to realise them, One such example which might be overlooked can be found in the first column on pagewhere we can see what looks like an elongated underline encased between brackets use a magnifying glass to look more closely at the “underline” and be amazed you are looking at a sentence written in the smallest typeface ever created, and this was achieved in!

There is, perhaps, a rather pedantic quality to this work.
The objects it exhibits are simply presented, They actually exist. BrookeHitching provides basic backgrounds as to the reasons why such works were done, and one feels that similar deeds will continue to be realised in the future, but one cannot help but feel the question remains unresolved.
One the one hand they express the loftiest of ambitions and creativity on the other they raise questions as to the soundness of mind of their creators,

Perhaps the most accurate answer to the question why is “because it seemed like a good idea at the time”, but it is also true that curiosity, obsessiveness, ingenuity, and other like qualities are equally valid.
One thing is clear: there is no limit to what human beings have, and will achieve, All these objects exist because we are human: they are the products of humanity, And perhaps that in itself should both exhilarate and terrify us in equal measure!
"Subjective Strangeness is in the eye of the book holder"

"The Madman's Library" is a MUST HAVE for every book collector.
Edward BrookeHitching dives into the obscure history of books and all of it's oddities to compile the strangest books throughout history, "The Madman's Library" brings into the spotlight the outcasts for once, the books not mentioned in popular culture or primary school, the books considered too controversial or odd, abandoned and forgotten about, and tells us the fascinating stories of how they were created.
Being an eccentric, antique book collecting, history obsessed artist myself, I absolutely LOVED this entire book, It is beautifully illustrated as well, "The Madman's Library" is the perfect coffee table book or would make a unique gift for all of your book loving friends,

Thank you Netgalley for the copy, I really enjoyed it, When a book starts out with the inside covers being that of vividly bright colored fish from thebook Fishes, Crayfishes, and Crabs by Louis Renard some foreedge paintings illustrations along the edge of the pages that are only revealed when the pages are slightly fanned a demon or two along with some strange inhabitants of far off lands with tales of inhabitants with extra body parts or parts in unusual places and a scroll from the Edo period which displays farting competitions, you know it's GOING to be interesting.


Seriously.

Books that are not books like the Incan quipu, Books made of blue jade, Of linen and used to wrap an Egyptian mummy, Books embroidered on cloth. Written on skulls and violins, A wooden library made from the trees themselves with leaves and seeds inside and the bark outside, Books made to hide things like weapons and poisons, A book that can double as a portable commode stool,

Books written or covered by a variety of hides with or without fur/hair included human, Written in blood. A book made of cheese slices and Splenda packets,

Codes and cyphers the most famous being the Voynich manuscripts and Beale cipher which conceals a treasure buried in Virginia, There are many publications for the 'armchair' treasure hunters starting with Masquerade and dozens of others,

The pamphlet printed for Land Rover customers in Dubai that if the vehicle breaks down, it provides many survival instructions as well as being edible,

Collections and lexicons, Plates of birds, flowers, of sea creatures and swan marks ownership symbols branded or cut into the birds' upper bills, A collection of wallpaper samples all of which are highly toxic from the high amount of arsenic in the brilliant colors, The Harris List of Covent Garden Ladies prostitutes with appearances and talents which were published annually for nearlyyears,

Of course, there is a nod to the various hoaxes or fake books like the Hitler diaries and the socalled autobiography of Howard Hughes,

The catalogue of Hernando Colon's massive library who tried to collect a copy of every book in the world and is now the only source regarding many titles that no longer exist.


The supernatural from grimoire and demons along with manuals for the I Ching and books written by the ghosts of authors working with a live person, Alchemy and anatomy books.

And no book on books would be complete without a nod to Titivillus, the patron "demon" of scribes who is responsible for the misspellings and dropped words that plagued the handwritten copiers of various tomes and required some creativity to deal with.


From largest take your choice of the one that is six feet tall to the antiphonies medieval choral books that were large enough for the entire choir to share to the printing of the Brazilian tax laws weighing in at.
tons,,pages and nearlyfeet tall first and only edition since Brazil basically addsnew tax laws a day at the time of the The Madman's Library's publication, Then there is the miniBibles and tiny copies of the Qur'an that were small enough to be affixed to battle standards or even personally worn as an amulet to the really smallest which requires a electron microscope to read.


It's just a fun read and lavishly illustrated, I am certain that the author had a

fun time writing it and finding examples of the different types of books as well as being surprised by the more exotic items.


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