Baker - To the letter: the lost art of letter writing and how to get it back

PRAISE FOR SIMON GARFIELD

To the Letter

Might stir you to send a handwritten note or two of your own.... Quirky stories abound.... Garfield is smart to celebrate letter-writing rather than lament its decline. He can tell that preaching against e-mail wont inspire anyone to choose the post office over pixels. But tugging at our heartstrings just might.

The Washington Post Book World

Thoroughly captivating... Garfield shows us the poetic nature of the written word.... An overdue homage to something we once took for granted but really was an art.

The Tampa Tribune

Garfields core argument... speaks powerfully to a broader urgencythe increasingly endangered species of meticulous, thoughtful self-revelation and deep mutual understanding through the written word in the age of reactionary responses and knee-jerk replies. He captures this beautifully.

BrainPickings.org

Garfield is a bestselling writer of irresistible enthusiasm. [His] robust and propulsive engagement with letters as an essential embodiment of the human spirit and a driving cultural force makes for exciting reading and thoughtful speculation about the future of scholarship and communication.

Booklist (starred review)

A book that goes on my keeper shelf.... Buy it now, read it, and wrap it later!

Hudson Valley News

This endlessly informative book from one of Britains best nonfiction writers provides a heartfelt reminder of just how much wed lose... the book serves up any number of vivid examples from people famous and unknown.

Readers Digest

On the Map

Engaging ... full of little conversation pieces.

Janet Maslin, The New York Times

D eep research and descriptive intensity. [Garfield] regales us with tales of such wonders as Britains medieval Mappa Mundi... On the Map offers a world of revelation.

USA Today

Delightfully meandering.

NPR.org

This is an absolute must for map lovers everywhere.

Chicago Tribune

On the Map is a treasure: exhilarating, witty, compulsively readable, and just plain fun.

The Seattle Times

Captivating and meticulously researched... Garfield has much to offer on the ancient art of mapmaking (with beautiful illustrations throughout).

American Way

Engrossing, endlessly fascinating... enlightening and impossible to put down.... an irresistible invitation to see the world, and delivering on his promise of the map as story, the map as life.

Booklist (starred review)

Just My Type

A smart, funny, accessible book that does for typography what Lynne Trusss bestselling Eats, Shoots & Leaves did for punctuation: made it noticeable for people who had no idea they were interested in such things.

The New York Times

A genre-bender of a typography bookpart history textbook, part design manual, part subtle stand-up comedy routine.... an absolute treat for the type-nerd, design history geek, and general lover of intelligent writing with humor.

TheAtlantic.com

A rollicking tour of the world of typography.

USA Today

Garfields engaging history of letter design will be eye candy... [Just My Type is] stuffed with fascinating bits of information... lively, richly illustrated.

NPR.org, Books We Like

Whether youre a graphic designer or a layperson with no background in this area, reading what Garfield has to say will change the way you perceive the written word forever.

Los Angeles Times

Informative, delightfuland essential reading for word geeks everywhere.

The Seattle Times

Charming and informative.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Deft and downright fun.

PureWow.com

SARAH LEE

Simon Garfield is the author of fourteen acclaimed books of nonfiction, including On the Map and Just My Type. He lives in London.

Connect online: www.simongarfield.com

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Version_2

To Justine

A slit in the door: a novel concept in 1849.

We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last we destroy them out of discretion, and so disappears the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverable for ourselves and for others.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in peoples lives.

Anatole Broyard

There must be millions of people all over the world who never get any love letters... I could be their leader.

Charlie Brown

An early pillar box, circa 1853: Not a single letter has been stolen.

Contents

In which we learn, in a roundabout way, how not to catch a bullet in your teeth, and ponder the value of letters in an age of email.

In which inhabitants of a garrison town beneath Hadrians Wall communicate with the present, and we find that even in ancient Rome it was important to plump up the cushions for visitors.

In which we get a proper education.

In which Marcus Aurelius falls for his teacher, twelfth-century lovers meet their comeuppance, and Petrarch complains about the crappy postal service.