Alphabet Compendium

This unique alphabet book features full-page, ultra-detailed, hand-drawn illustrations with an average of 100 items per letter for each of the 26 letters of the English alphabet. As envisioned by illustrator and muralist, Nigel Sussman, this book will provide hours of educational seek-and-find fun for art enthusiasts of all ages. There are an abundance of things to discover, from Aardvark to Zucchini!

Learn your ABC's with colorful and vibrant illustration by Steve Mack.

Many languages, particularly those which have achieved literary status, have been studied in great detail, and specialized descriptions of these are plentiful. What has not been so readily available, however, is a general survey covering a wide spectrum of the world's languages on a comparative basis. It is this kind of comparative cross-section of languages, ranging from the familiar and well-documented to the relatively obscure, that the Compendium of the World's Languages presents.

"Though there are many books about the history of the alphabet, virtually none address how that history came to be. In Inventing the Alphabet, Johanna Drucker guides readers from antiquity to the present to show how humans have shaped and reshaped their own understanding of this transformative writing tool. From ancient beliefs in the alphabet as a divine gift to growing awareness of its empirical origins through the study of scripts and inscriptions, Drucker describes the frameworks-classical, textual, biblical, graphical, antiquarian, archaeological, paleographic, and political-within which the alphabet's history has been and continues to be constructed. Drucker's book begins in ancient Greece, with the earliest writings on the alphabet's origins. She then explores biblical sources on the topic and medieval preoccupations with the magical properties of individual letters. She later delves into the development of modern archaeological and paleographic tools, and she concludes with the role of alphabetic characters in the digital era. Throughout, she argues that, as a shared form of knowledge technology integrated into every aspect of our lives, the alphabet performs complex cultural, ideological, and technical functions, and her carefully curated selection of images demonstrates how closely the letters we use today still resemble their original appearance millennia ago"--

This illustrated compendium celebrates LGBTQIA+ history and culture, written by and according to culture icon Justin Elizabeth Sayre! Based on Sayre's five-part show in New York City, From Gay to Z is a humorous collection of the rich legacy of gay culture, told through the letters of the alphabet. From ABBA to addiction, hair and makeup to HIV, Fannie Flagg to fierce, Sayre offers their own perspective on the things that have influenced gay culture today, including iconic figures, historical moments, ongoing issues in the LGBTQIA+ community, and everything in between. As gay culture is always evolving and different for everyone, this book does not serve as a definitive guide—instead, Sayre encourages readers to use this knowledge to reflect on the things that have informed their personal identities. Engagingly written and beautifully designed, From Gay to Z is a distinctive and dynamic look at gay culture for LGBTQIA+ readers everywhere. STRONG VOICE AND ENGAGING CONTENT: Sayre's writing is lively, engaging, and rich. The entries have their own style and contain humorous anecdotes, facts, commentary, and more—all told through Sayre's animated yet authoritative voice. BELOVED, WELL-KNOWN AUTHOR: Sayre is active and well-known in the LGBTQIA+ community and beyond. They've been recognized as one of "LA's 16 Most Talented LGBT Comics" by Frontiers Magazine, and their debut comedy album, The Gay Agenda, was named one of 2016's "Best Things in Comedy" by The Comedy Bureau. They host their own podcast, Sparkle & Circulate, where they interview performers, writers, and other creative minds of the LGBTQIA+ community. As an activist, Justin's charity benefit show, "Night of a Thousand Judys," raises money for the Ali Forney Center for Homeless LGBTQIA+ youth and is now in its 7th year. Perfect for: • LGBTQIA+ people of all ages • Fans of Trixie and Katya's Guide to Modern Womanhood • Those looking for a birthday or holiday gift for their LGBTQIA+ friends and family

Karl Gerstner is one of Switzerland's—and therefore the world's—best and best-known graphic and typographic designers. His high ambition in this book, first published in German in 1972, is to provide a complete and systematic taxonomy of writing, a programmed investigation into the underlying structure of script and type; Gerstner writes that his book is meant to "encompass the aspects and possibilities of the alphabet in their totality." It is this systematic and programmatic approach that sets the book apart. Most studies of typography and its larger graphic setting and context are concerned with the history of the development of writing and printing, or are collections of typographic models or typical examples, or are textbooks on layout and design. This one is organized into five sections that take up, in turn, Script and Speech—the relation between writing and language, different alphabets, reading directions (the eye follows directions and moves in a direction), style; Manual Graphics or craft—materials, tools, methods, procedures, reproductive techniques; Images—letter pictures, word pictures, sentence pictures, handwriting, size, proportion, type weight, form, harmony, texture, brightness, color; Function—as effected through dimensioning, spacing, grouping, layout, integration; and Expression—as achieved through coordination, articulation, emphasis, diversion, and the spirit of play. As a physical object, the book is more than a passive repository of examples of typographic display. It makes a dynamic and integrated typographic statement of its own and as a whole as it progresses and develops in accordance with its internal program. The book is nearly square and opens vertically rather than horizontally. Type is printed on only one side of the sheets, which are folded back on themselves along the outer edge to form double leaves, so that there is no distracting show-through "noise." There are words printed in blind embossing and stencil cutouts. And color is used with an elegant restraint, appearing only at the book's mid-section climax—its very sparseness amid the prevailing sharp black and white contributes a luxurious effect.

In his classic study Learning Arabic in Renaissance Europe (1505-1624)’, Robert Jones explores the practical and intellectual challenges faced by scholars of Arabic, especially of Arabic grammar, from Pedro de Alcalá to Guillaume Postel, Giovan Battista Raimondi and Thomas Erpenius.

Spencerian penmanship is considered the pinnacle of classic handwriting and cursive--now a lost art. Offering a bind up of 6 books in 1, this hands-on guide is the only all-in-one edition of L.P. Spencer's theory and practice workbooks for learning and practicing perfect lettering.