DR McElroy’s Signs and Symbols of the World is a reference book, one you dip into rather than one you read from cover to cover. I did attempt to read it all at once, for purpose of reviewing, but I’m afraid I rather ran out of steam. 

That’s my fault, not the book’s. I was reading it wrong. Trying to take it all in at once just leads to complete information overload, because it’s so wonderfully comprehensive. It really does address just about every sign or symbol I could wish to understand, from ancient runes through to the most modern of symbols, the emoticon. There’s not much I can say in a review except that it does exactly what it says on the tin, and that i shall be coming back to it again and again for information and explanation. Fascinating.

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This informative and engaging illustrated reference provides the stories behind 1,001 signs and symbols, from ancient hieroglyphs to modern-day political and subculture symbols.

What in the world does Ω mean? And what about its meaning might have led my coffee date to tattoo it on his entire forearm? Where did the symbol ∞ originate, and what was its first meaning? How did the ampersand symbol & come about and how was it applied daily in book publishing? And what is the full story behind that staring eye on top of the pyramid on our American dollar bill? This comprehensive guide to signs and symbols explains.

Find within:More than 1,000 illustrationsAn extensive collection of written and cultural symbols, including animals, instruments, stones, shapes, numbers, colors, plants, food, parts of the body, religious and astrological symbols, emojis, and gesturesHistorical facts culled from a wide variety of sourcesLearn all about the signs and symbols that surround us and their part in our rich world history.

Elegantly designed and beautifully illustrated, the Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia series offers comprehensive, display-worthy references on a range of intriguing topics, including birthday astrology, dream interpretation, techniques for harnessing the power of dreams, and flower meanings.

My thoughts:
... yes, it is interesting, but the pictures are really crappy in the ebook, so this is an absolutely NONO for me! There are quite a lot of symols explained, but the book itself looks boring and not really made with love for little details or Designs ... yes, for me this is a plus, when you put a lot of effort into the book itself - it make books more interesting!

Note: 3 or  C+

thanks for letting me read this ARC, I appreciate it - the opinion is my own!

Found this book absolutely riveting and a wealth of knowledge, a true treasure trove of information that was exposed in a concise manner and that covered so much range in between the topics. A great resource to have, especially if you write paranormal stories or have a fascination with paranormal and magic and the occult

Signs & Symbols of the World by D.R. McElray is a colorful and exceptionally informative encyclopedia. For someone who had read a variety of encyclopedias on the subject, there is very little that can surprise me. I have never heard of an angelic symbolism, which was quite peculiar, especially how people create it. Book is perfect as a shelf piece and a page-turner. Displaying this book will in no way hinder the look of the shelf. 
The best part of the book? It is difficult to remember everything at once, so the reader has always something to discover when coming back to it. Simply and utterly perfect.

I received an Advanced Review Copy of this book from Netgalley. This graphic dictionary would make an excellent gift for a middle school boy that is a visual learner.

Loved the idea, not so much the execution. I expected more of a dictionary-style book with entries for tons of symbols and sigils, focusing on the more obscure ones. Instead, the book focused on just a handful of symbols in each category, often ones that were common and well-known. While some of it was interesting, overall it was disappointing.

RELEASE YOUR INNER NERD!

I did not only read this book, I relished it over the period of a few days.

Signs & Symbols of the World is a fun and very informative book that covers all the relevant bases when it comes to signs in all the cultural, social, and historical aspects. It really gave me an opportunity to nurture my inner nerd, as I delved into the hundreds of different symbols, packed with facts I did not know about.

I was particularly fascinated by the subjects dealing with alchemy, medical, and astrological signs. Although there were a few sections that I was not necessarily interested in (like military or religion), the subjects are covered in such a brief and compelling way that I could find interesting details as I read them.

I would really recommend this for all the random trivia lovers, like myself.

Both enlightening and intriguing, I enjoyed reading this book on signs and symbols of the world. The spectrum is broad and comprehensive, it contains enough detail to ignite curiosity but not too much technicality that makes you want to kill yourself. A great balance of title and content.
I especially loved the chapters on chemistry and medicine; my favorite parts were language, writing and punctuation which are my special interests. I have learnt much of etymology, historical and archeological backgrounds of many symbols. Interesting topics like witchcraft, alchemy and pagan-related symbols were bewitchingly interesting and informative. I found some parts unnecessary though, such as digital, manufacturing and shipping, either known too well by everyone or of no interest to most people. However overall a good quality, well-researched, informative and interesting book that is worth your time.

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This is a well put together and knowledgeable book of signs and symbols from ancient times all the way up to presant times. 

Each chapter shows a different set of symbols with basic information for each and information about why and when they were used and by whom. 

This is a great book of knowledge for anyone with an interest in ancient times or symbols in general.

Thanks to Wellfleet Press for the ARC! 

Nice read! It was interesting to learn more about signs and symbols. My favorite pages were the ones regarding our gestures. Lots of new information for me. When I requested this book, I thought I would recognize most of the symbols and would know what they meant. Now, after reading it, I've come to realize that there's much more about them and I had no idea. All my life I've been responding to these signs, but I didn't know why. And also, I was wrong about a few ones. Now things make much more sense. 

The design is beautiful, very pleasant for the eyes of the reader.  

The only reason I'm not giving it 5 stars is because I wanted it to be a little more complete, maybe. It was so interesting, I wanted to know more about a few subjects and suddenly the author was already changing the topic... But anyway, great introduction for beginners like me.

This seems to be a random collection of symbols, icon, flags, emoji. It doesn’t go into any useful detail into any section. I did find the ironing symbols very useful, Now I can read the tags on my clothing.

This was a very interesting book, I love reading non-fiction books like this one because they go into detail about things like signs and symbols that maybe I don't know or haven't heard about before. That's what really caught my attention when requesting this ARC in Netgalley. Signs and Symbols of the World does a very thorough examination on different symbols that are present from religion, to language, technology, etc.  I really liked the variety of topics it explained and the easiness of the explanation. Very interesting.

Nice book for old and new symbols across the world. Some explanation to them. Visual. Good for those who like a variety of symbols or to see what one represents.

What a gem of a book and quite unusual too.  There are hundreds of signs and symbols from such  a wide range of historical and modern categories including music, driving, hazardous materials, washing, digital, Celtic,  religion, mythology, animals and alchemy (to name but a few).  The illustrations are so clear and all sorts of interesting facts and historical information are included.  It would be a great resource for so many people  and definitely a reference book to keep on your shelf.

This book was one that you can sit down and flip through and learn a lot of interesting things you likely dint know. If you skim read it, you’ll be intrigued by how much there is you have no clue about. When you eventually read this thing cover to cover because it will compel you to do so, you’ll likely feel smarter than ever but talk abt abd see symbols everywhere for the next week at least! Rest find and happy with my head full of symbols and facts!

Signs & Symbols of the World: Over 1,001 Visual Signs Explained by D.R. McElroy is a fairly comprehensive collection of symbols and their very basic meanings.

While this is a good reference book it is not a scholarly reference book. I don't mean to say it doesn't have a place in a scholar's library but it is neither exhaustive in its descriptions nor does it offer a bibliography or any notes. This is neither a positive nor a negative in and of itself, just something readers need to understand. I miss having a bibliography but I think that is just my personal quirk. This book offers enough information that if I want to research further I have a jumping off point here. Space is also, I think, a consideration. With so many signs and symbols from such a wide range of uses, a bibliography or reference section could get to be as long as the body of the book. I think, for what it is, a general reference for casual readers who want to have access to information, it works wonderfully.

I found the presentation to be appealing and I, for one, was neither confused about the layout or had problems knowing what captions went with what images. This is not a book on semiotics and does not get into a lot of depth, but most people who want a book covering this wide of an area don't want or need great depth, that can be found elsewhere, this is to answer the question "what is that symbol?" Why and how is a topic for another book(s).

I see two main places where this book will be very popular. First is the person who simply likes to have a handy source that can answer the basic question of what a particular symbol is. This person will also likely enjoy reading through the book, whether cover to cover or jumping around. And it certainly doesn't hurt that this is an attractive book and, at 8"x10", can sit on a bookshelf or on a tabletop for display. The second place is the academic or researcher (writers, game developers, etc) who wants a handy reference to place a found symbol within a context or, conversely, to find symbols within an area they are working.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

This was fascinating, intriguing and tickled my brain from start to end. Who doesn't like looking at different signs, weird pictures, etc? I loved learning more about the different zodiacs, international signs and more. This book has things I didn't even know existed so I think it is a good concise reference for people interested in the subject or people who are just curious.

The author obviously did a lot of research to look for the familiar signs and symbols to the less familiar and unheard of signs. The end result was this book is a complete reference, as mentioned before, but can also full under fascinating useless information/trivia. Hey, maybe this will be a Jeopardy category someday (haha).

I was very amused and intrigued by what I learned from this book. It was an easy read because it was mostly pictures and descriptions of each, so the size of this didn't bother me at all. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this and glad I requested this. I definitely want to get a hard copy to own to share this wisdom with others. Perhaps it can help with the game Pictionary too!

Thanks to Netgalley, DR McElroy and Quarto Publishing-Wellfleet Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 5/5/20

Signs & Symbols of the World was a very interesting read, I learned a thing or two. 
Actually, I learned a lot. 
This book is loaded with information relating to symbols used by humans. When  I finished this book I was surprised at how much I didn’t know about a lot of symbols.
I suppose we just take them for granted. 

What’s particularly interesting is that we use symbols so frequently, yet somehow, we forget their origin or even their meaning. It was enlightening to learn the origins of some of the symbols, to understand the true meaning and even the original intent of a symbol. Like how the scarab beetle is not in a flesh eating monster as they are depicted in film. The scarab beetle was once thought of as a symbol of the sun god. Ancient Egyptians noticed they behaved in a similar manner as the sun and were surprised by how they reproduced, it seemed so miraculous it had to have been an intervention from the gods. 

As humans, we use symbols to read, to write, to inform, to educate, to warn, to promote and to entertain. We use symbols for armies, for hospitals, for religion and for consumerism. In almost every aspect of any form of communication and most human behaviour, we use symbols. Yet, the meaning behind some symbols is quite surprising. It has been an enlightening read to learn how symbols have been adapted and modified to represent something completely different to its original intent.

There are many aspects of this book that I like. I especially enjoyed the plain language. As I was reading, I was struck with the ease of the descriptions and felt that it would be a great addition to a classroom library. So if you’re a teacher you may want to consider this book. It is educational, informative, interesting and it has lots of symbols (pictures).

This arc was not digitally friendly for me no matter what downloading apps I tried to use (and I have never had problems with these apps either). I had trouble downloading it, even when it was downloaded all I could see were mostly white pages apart from a few symbols and explanations every 5-10 pages or so.

It's disappointing because I was so looking forward to reading up on more symbols and signs that can be found around the world. When the book comes out I'll probably try to find it in stores or in my local library because I do believe (from the small amount I was able to read) it will help me understand more about symbols and their meanings and where they come from.

Soooo.... this book has a great onjective in my opinion, reunite "all" the symbols of the world in a book is handy. Except this book is not handy at all, the organisation is messy and non user-friendly. For example, the part on the symbolism of plants includes Ogham (the druidic "tree" alphabet") and the Green Man (a sacred figure) wich don't have a lot to do in this section in my opinion. Also the chapter "ancient and modern civilisation" says it will show us the signification of symbols then and now but doesn't do it for every symbol ? It's all very confusing. There are also some repetitions within a couple of pages, the same symbol is sometimes addresses multiple times, like the symbols for planets/metals in alchemy.
The page layout is a bit terrible too. Parts overlap on one page, making it less pleasant to read. Some parts are also too short to be parts, like "alchemy symbols used for other purposes" (there are only 2 symbols if I remember correctly !). And sometimes it's hard to understand wich symbols we are talking about. The book also lacks homogeneity when it comes to the illustrations, wich bothers me immensly.
I learned some interesting facts tho and discovered symbols I didn't know like Zibu. I give it only 2 stars because I would'nt buy this book to be my reference on symbols, there are a ton of books ont his matter that are better.