October 2010 Book of the Month.

This morning I reached the end of Just My Type, I sighed and put the book down, wishing it had been a lot longer and I hadn’t read it so quickly. Fonts, can I hear you asking, what’s interesting about them?  But you’d be so wrong, all human life is here, Simon Garfield tracks the history of fonts from Gutenberg to almost yesterday. What we read and what we write or view on our computers -  how we see politics, advertising, entertainment are all influenced by Bodoni, Optima, Times New Roman and a host of other fonts. The book itself is a splendid piece of publishing and beautifully illustrated in the text with font examples and with additional well chosen illustrations. 
 
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Alphabets: A Miscellany of Letters, David Sacks
The Pencil: A History, Henry Petroski

Synopsis

What's your type? Suddenly everyone's obsessed with fonts. Whether you're enraged by Ikea's Verdanagate, want to know what the Beach Boys have in common with easy Jet or why it's okay to like Comic Sans, Just My Type will have the answer. Learn why using upper case got a New Zealand health worker sacked. Refer to Prince in the Tafkap years as a Dingbat (that works on many levels). Spot where movies get their time periods wrong and don't be duped by fake posters on eBay. Simon Garfield meets the people behind the typefaces and along the way learns why some fonts - like men - are from Mars and some are from Venus. From type on the high street and album covers, to the print in our homes and offices, Garfield is the font of all types of knowledge.

Reviews

About the Author

Simon Garfield is the author of twelve acclaimed books of non-fiction including Mauve,The Error World and The Nation's Favourite. His edited diaries from the Mass Observation Archive - Our Hidden Lives, We Are At War and Private Battles - were bestsellers, and his study of Aids in Britain, The End of Innocence, won the Somerset Maugham prize. He lives in London and St Ives, Cornwall. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation