The Greatest Invention A History of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts by Silvia Ferrara

​      I’m the first to rate and review this book. An objectively smart book I subjectively didn’t quite love. But for the purposes of this review, I shall strive for objectivity.
     I love historical nonfiction books told through objects. I’ve read ones done through vehicles, guns (USA, of course), etc. At a glance, this book looked to be a perfect combination of that and linguistics, another interest of mine. And so, it’s difficult to say why exactly it didn’t quite work for me, but let’s try…
      First off, it’s important to mention it’s likely not to be the book’s fault and you certainly can’t fault the author. In fact, the writing here is good enough to qualify for literature…in fact, the author may have wanted to (or maybe ought to have) write a literary book instead of nonfiction. Either way, the writing’s very good, engaging, all that. But then, and perhaps because it’s so literary, it does its best to stay on topic, but constantly veers off in wildly discursive tangents. It’s almost like it’s a book about a book about linguistics and manuscripts.
      I admit, for me the manuscripts were the major draw, secret and otherwise, decipherable or not, they absolutely fascinate me. And they are featured in the book, just not as prominently as I would have liked. But the book really is more about writing itself, writing, according to the author (and it’s difficult to argue) is our greatest invention. That’s the contention belabouredly asserted throughout the book.
       Funny thing, it doesn’t feature anywhere near even the top ten of most polls on the subject, nowhere near the wheel, tv, internet, etc. But then again, we don’t live in the smartest of times and so it’s easy to overlook the granddaddy of them all – the written word. And yet, where would we be without it.
       The author gets it, she’s an expert, what she doesn’t know about linguistics may not be worth knowing, and her passion for her subject certainly comes across and yet somehow the book was strangely underwhelming while overwritten. It is, most likely, a personal author/reader chemistry thing and shouldn’t affect the enjoyment of others.
        Overall, though it dragged at times, The Greatest Invention was still an enlightening and educational read, and one featuring an excellent amount of black and white photos and images to tell the additional thousands or words, and so worth the time. Thanks Netgalley.