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Shady Characters

The secret life of punctuation

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Shady Characters is miscellany, books, and more from Keith Houston. Here you’ll find information technologies of the unorthodox kind: from emoji to unusual marks of punctuation; from codices to calculators; and everything in between.

Now available to pre-order, Face with Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji. Learn more

Shady Characters at the WSJ: Five Best Books on Great Inventions

October 4, 2023

The following was published in the Wall Street Journal on August 18th, 2023, under the title “Five Best: Books on Great Inventions”. It comprises short reviews of five books I read in the course of researching Empire of the Sum. Enjoy, and please leave your own recommendations for good books on inventions, computing, and calculators in the comments!

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We have more winners!

September 8, 2023

Congratulations to Robert Oesterreich and Fred Grant, winners of the second round of the Empire of the Sum giveaway! Their names were picked at random from the set of all entrants who replied to the original post about the competition.

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book, competition calculator 2 Comments

Calculator of the day: the Casio QL-10 Calculighter

August 29, 2023

It’s out! Empire of the Sum is now available in the US, and to mark the occasion I’ve been posting about a few of my favourite calculators. I’m closing this series for now with perhaps the apotheosis of 1980s calculator design: the 1981 Casio QL-10 Calculighter.

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Part of a series on Calculator of the day news calculator, calculighter, casio, ql-10 4 Comments

We have winners – and a new competition!

August 27, 2023

Congratulations to Mary Ann Atwood and John W. Stuart, winners of the first round of the Empire of the Sum giveaway! Their names were picked at random from the set of all entrants who replied the original post about the competition. Thank you all for entering! If you won, congratulations, and look out for an email from me arranging delivery of your copy of Empire. If not, read on.

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book, competition calculator 15 Comments

Calculators: a #patentedpodcast with Dallas Campbell

August 26, 2023

I had a lot of fun a few months back recording an interview with Dallas Campbell on the subject of book history for his podcast, Patented. At least someone else must have enjoyed it too, because Dallas invited me back for another episode, this time on digital calculators. Have a listen and let me know what you think!

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Cover for "Face with Tears of Joy", showing the face with tears of joy emoji throughout emoji history
Face with Tears of Joy paperback. (W. W. Norton, 2025.)

Sex! Conflict! International standards bodies! The story of emoji is far more interesting than it has any right to be. Face with Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji will explore where the world’s newest language came from, how it works, and where it is going. It will not help you master emoji — only a tween could do that, and they will be too busy texting — but it _will_ provide an indispensable guide to the most vibrant part of modern language.

Face with Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji is available for pre-order, to be published in July 2025 by W. W. Norton.

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The sun rises behind a pocket calculator, whose display reads "07734"
Empire of the Sum hardcover. (W. W. Norton, 2023.)

An entertaining, informative story about a technology that defined an era.

Kirkus Reviews

To describe a calculator as “a symphony of solenoids and switches” (that would be an early, discarded model of what would become the Casio 14-A, which went on the market in 1975 for $1,347) may not be erotica, but it is good writing — and these days, the latter is rather more rare.

Alexander Nazaryan, New York Times
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Paperback cover of "The Book", showing the title on a cream band against a dark green background.
The Book paperback. (W. W. Norton, 2025.)

Erudite, playful, and illuminating…a splendid, challenging mixture of information and fun.

Kirkus Reviews

Hundreds of books about books have been published during the past century…I will not claim that this one is the very best of all time. Yet The Book is possibly the best of our time.

Steven Heller, Eye Magazine

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Shady Characters paperback (W. W. Norton, 2014).
Shady Characters paperback (W. W. Norton, 2014).

Punctuation is not a mere ornament or a curiosity — it is essential, and we need to know about it. Keith Houston’s history is entertaining and readable.

Ian Sansom, The Guardian

Scholarly, highly readable and, on some deeper level, slightly deranged.

Marcus Berkmann, The Spectator

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