Monday, May 03, 2004
Bibliographic acquisitions for May:
The alphabet and elements of lettering, by Frederick W. Goudy. Dorset Press reprint, hardcover.

The Cambridge companion to Brahms, edited by Michael Musgrave. Softcover.

Mechanics, by L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz. Softcover.

I have landed, by Stephen Jay Gould. Hardcover.

Age of iron, by J. M. Coetzee. Hardcover.

Georges Cuvier, fossil bones, and geological catastrophes, by Martin Rudwick. University of Chicago Press, hardcover.
Geoges Cuvier is notable for being set in two typefaces. Rudwick's commentary & analysis, as well as the historical & biographical background, are set in Granjon, a classic French Roman related to Garamond. Translations of Cuvier are set in Didot (or Bodoni, I couldn't tell the difference without side-by-side specimens), a famous French typeface, which is the prototypical member of the entire Modern Roman family; it was a very popular typeface during Cuvier's day. A remarkably thoughtful choice of typefaces here.

Goudy said of the Bodoni typeface in The alphabet and elements of lettering: "a brilliance which is almost blinding". This is less apparent on the computer screen than on paper, but which is quite true. Modern phototypesetting in particular, accentuates the lucidity and sharpness of the Modern Romans; it would be nice to see more of it being typeset.