books – Shady Characters

Bombs, books and generative AI: a blunt and obvious parable

November 9, 2024

I know, I know; these days, everyone and their five-legged, three-eyed dog is writing a piece about AI. I can’t promise that this one will be more insightful or educational than any of the others, but I can promise that it will invoke humanity’s undimmable hubris, the atomic bomb, mad cow disease, and, to keep us on brand, books.

Miscellany № 102: books!

July 7, 2024

In the second of this miniseries of post-deadline catch-ups (the first dealt with punctuation), I’ve collected some links on the subject of books.

First is a recent exhibition at Harvard’s Houghton Library, called “Marks in Books”, that has, sadly, run its course. But John Overholt, a curator of early books and manuscripts at Houghton, writes to say that the exhibit was adapted from a 1984 exhibition on the same subject and that the catalogue of that earlier incarnation is available online.

Shady Characters on Glenn Fleishman’s Tiny Typecast

March 1, 2020

A couple of months ago, in the midst of writing my emoji series, I took some time out to have a chat with Glenn Fleishman for his new podcast series, the Tiny Typecast. Glenn is an old friend of the blog and is astonishingly well-informed about books, typography and all things related: we talked about books and book history for what felt like a few minutes, but turned out to be the better part of an hour. Glenn is easy to talk to and, if you check out our conversation on Apple Podcasts or at Glenn’s blog, you’ll find that he’s easy to listen to, too. (The jury is still out on yours truly.)