Gutenberg's Apprentice: A Novel
I read this book because I am interested in the history of printing books. Gutenberg is known as the father of moveable type. In this book he is a stern, demanding, duplicitous, and often absent father. The apprentice of the title is a church scribe who has been called back from his lofty position in Paris by his adoptive father, a businessman in Mainz, Germany around 1450. Peter Schoeffer is enlisted as apprentice to the great printer-to-be, but finds that his scribe's skills mean nothing in this new way of making books...until Peter is asked to help design the actual fonts for the printing of a new Bible.
Worlds collide. Some consider it blasphemy to use a machine to print the word of God. Others think this machine will take away jobs. Some are concerned that the printing press will allow man to print any old prattle instead of only chosen, sacred texts. Some of the pressmen don't care so long as they are paid in wages and wine. Some do care, but have little authority, given Gutenberg's tyranny and the power of the Church throughout all of Europe.
The pressroom is dark, loud, smelly, and smoky, but greatness emerges after 5 years of secret toil and moil. As we stand in 2014 on the precipice dividing e-readers from the possible death of the actual book-as-thing (see 'Amazon is doing the world a favor by crushing book publishers at http://www.vox.com/2014/10/22/7016827/amazon-hachette-monopoly ), this is a good time to look back at the herculean effort required to print 180 copies of one book almost 600 years ago.
P.S. For the record, I like actual books-as-things.
