Goodbye Gutenberg : hello to a new generation of readers and writers
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 394-407) and index.

You hold in your hands a book that takes you on a journey where no writer has ever taken you before. Valerie Kirschenbaum not only dreams of a Renaissance "the likes of which the world has never seen," she gives us the actual blueprint. In warm and intimate prose, she shows us how and why we will experience this Renaissance in our lifetime. Responding to the recent National Endowment for the Arts survey, which documented a precipitous, 20-year decline in America's reading habits, she presents an electrifying new solution for captivating a generation of readers reared on television, movies and music videos.

With 860 gorgeous, full color images from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Maya, India, China, Japan, Tibet, and medieval Europe (many never seen by an American audience), Kirschenbaum provides what world renowned graphic designer Milton Glaser described as "the visual history of the universe and its relationship to writing." She combines the breath-taking beauty of illuminated manuscripts with today's latest technologies to create a scintillating multisensory experience.

Flip through these pages and see why early reviewers have been astonished and sometimes even rendered speechless by these imaginative designs. This limited first edition is one of only 4,700 copies printed. You are among a select number of early readers to witness the birth of a new movement in the arts. It is a synthesis of the written word with our multimedia culture, of intuitive thinking with the rational mind, of feminine and masculine perspectives, and of the wisdom of early cultures with the scientific milieu we now inhabit. You hold in your hands the first flowering of a remarkable new Renaissance.