Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books by Edward Wilson-Lee - Available

The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books

Christopher Columbus, His Son, and the Quest to Build the World's Greatest Library

by Edward Wilson-Lee
Richard Trinder
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
This impeccably researched and "adventure-packed" (The Washington Post) account of the obsessive quest by Christopher Columbus's son to create the greatest library in the world is "the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters" (NPR) and offers a vivid picture of Europe on the verge of becoming modern.
At the peak of the Age of Exploration, Hernando Colón sailed with his father Christopher Columbus on his final voyage to the New World, a journey that ended in disaster, bloody mutiny, and shipwreck. After Columbus's death in 1506, eighteen-year-old Hernando sought to continue—and surpass—his father's campaign to explore the boundaries of the known world by building a library that would collect everything ever printed: a vast holding organized by summaries and catalogues; really, the first ever database for the exploding diversity of written matter as the printing press proliferated across Europe. Hernando traveled extensively and obsessively amassed his collection based on the groundbreaking conviction that a library of universal knowledge should include "all books, in all languages and on all subjects," even material often dismissed: ballads, erotica, news pamphlets, almanacs, popular images, romances, fables. The loss of part of his collection to another maritime disaster in 1522, set off the final scramble to complete this sublime project, a race against time to realize a vision of near-impossible perfection.

"Magnificent...a thrill on almost every page" (The New York Times Book Review), The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books is a window into sixteenth-century Europe's information revolution, and a reflection of the passion and intrigues that lie beneath our own insatiable desires to bring order to the world today.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 12, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781508280484
      • File size: 320023 KB
      • Duration: 11:06:42

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Audiobook lovers will take special pleasure in the ease and agility of Richard Trinder's narration of one of this season's most exacting texts. This history of the library assembled by Columbus's "natural" son, Hernando, is being compared to GALILEO'S DAUGHTER and THE SWERVE, and rightly, for opening a seemingly narrow window onto a broad view of an age. The prose is lively and evocative, and Trinder moves fluently through a range of languages and nomenclatures, and most wonderfully, through this book's amazing lists and catalogues. Cambridge historian Wilson-Lee (SHAKESPEARE IN SWAHILILAND) offers a fresh postimperialist perspective on the age of European exploration, the emergence of modern printing, modern libraries, and the concept of a global world--all narrated here with enormous grace, skill, and understanding. D.A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading