I found this book, about the history of indexes, to be alternately interesting and tedious. It is clearly not an easy subject to make into a fascinating, informative and readable book, however the author did a good job of drawing the reader in and I learned a lot about indexes - including that they should be called indexes in the plural rather than indices, the latter being a mathematical term!

I really enjoyed this book. I found it well written and engaging, with plenty of well researched information.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

Sorry for the delay in reviewing this book, interesting, new type of book for me, new author too. I felt engaged and interested. A decent read.

With thanks to the author, publishers, Penguin Press UK - Allen Lane, and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

In this well-researched and informative book, the author charts the evolution of the humble index from its origins in 11th-12th century scrolls, right up to today’s hashtags and powerful online internet search engines that have become so much a part of day to day life that the term “Google” has been largely adopted as a verb.

While the subject matter might not be the most fascinating for some people, for those that do have an interest the author tells the story of the index with levels of both clarity and humour that make it a pleasure to read. I particularly enjoyed some of the real-life (the man who used an index to prove that he wasn’t in fact a witch) and fictional (the index maintained by Sherlock Holmes) examples of the use of indexes that he referenced throughout the book.

Also interesting was how reading behaviours were seen to change as the index became more commonplace, with readers tending to reference the index and read only sections of books rather than full texts, and the worry that this would lead to a dumbing down of the reading population. This carried the additional risk that the perceived gist of a book could be altered based on how an index was put together, particularly by a potentially devious indexer!

All in all lots of food for thought, and an enjoyable read.

I am such a book nerd that even books about seemingly boring sections of a book gives me a little tingle. With such a clever title, I couldn't resist this one! I'm no expert so can't pretend that I new everything Mr Duncan was on about but I still found the book fascinating and definitely learned a thing or two.. I was prompted at times to turn to Google to look up new words and examples, scribble notes of my own and generally had a grand time revelling in my own nerdiness. I'm currently a student and have to write what feels like an endless parade of papers and I'm actually looking forward to creating my own index with all of my shiny new knowledge as soon as my next paper is announced.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Press for the ARC.

The humble index might not seem worthy of a book all of its own but in this quirky little title, Dennis Duncan introduces the reader to the intricacies of a part of a book that all too often goes ignored. This book is a little slice of the history of publishing told with great humour. Short and too the point but long enough to cover plenty of history and a delight to read.

This was an interesting and entertaining look at something that most people take for granted. Perhaps a somewhat unusual subject matter, but it's well written and I have no problem recommending it.

Listened to the audiobook version, via borrowbox.

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Read by Neil Gardner

I can't say it was a riveting read. It was quiet dry and a lot of the time I was zoning in and out, however, it does what it sets out to do and it does it well. I'm glad I listend to this rather than read, as I don't think I would have got through it in 2 days (or at all), especially as the chapters were very long, with sub chapters within.

I also feel like the narrator did a good job on avoiding a monotone voice, by adding different tones and inflections, and even providing different accents for quotes, in the reading. It was quite relaxing actually. As if I was listening to David Attenborough, and for that reason, made good bed time listening.

It was quiet extensive in its research and talked across a generous variety of topics. I did wonder how long it could talk about one very niche area for, so was pleasantly surprised how this spanned across many things.

I appreciate how it rounds up a chapter by easing you into what's to come in the following chapter.

I know some people would probably throughly enjoy the history of the Index more than I did, but I can't fault it on its solid information. Not much more I can say than this.

I love a good fact. Books filled with facts are fantastic. Good prose is essential for a fact book but equally essential is the Index. I confess that on occasion I have turned straight to the Index to see leap to the sections where people I know have been mentioned. A good index is a thing of beauty. I confess that I had given the history of the Index no thought at all until I read Index, A History of the by Dennis Duncan. It is a joy. There were indexes in the times of scroll but they really came into their own with invention of the book as we know it and page numbers. Who knew that page numbers had to be invented. So many excellent bookish facts are contained in Index, A History of. There are even spats played out via the medium of the Index. If you love a book then this is the book for you.

This was the sort of book it is great fun to dip in and out of, and i'm so annoyed I forgot to post this albeit brief review earlier. Really recommend it.

I've read quiet a few books about books this past year and sadly this one suffered by comparison with them. There were some amusing anecdotes but for me this book never quite hit the mark.

Very informative, would recommend! Thank you for providing an advance copy of this book for review!!

Most of us give little thought to the back of the book - it's just where you go to look things up. But here, hiding in plain sight, is an unlikely realm of ambition and obsession, sparring and politicking, pleasure and play. Here we might find Butchers, to be avoided, or Cows that sh-te Fire, or even catch Calvin in his chamber with a Nonne. This is the secret world of the index: an unsung but extraordinary everyday tool, with an illustrious but little-known past. Here, for the first time, its story is told.

Charting its curious path from the monasteries and universities of thirteenth-century Europe to Silicon Valley in the twenty-first, Dennis Duncan reveals how the index has saved heretics from the stake, kept politicians from high office and made us all into the readers we are today. We follow it through German print shops and Enlightenment coffee houses, novelists' living rooms and university laboratories, encountering emperors and popes, philosophers and prime ministers, poets, librarians and - of course - indexers along the way. Revealing its vast role in our evolving literary and intellectual culture, Duncan shows that, for all our anxieties about the Age of Search, we are all index-rakers at heart, and we have been for eight hundred years.
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Index is a well researched book on a subject we might not think as being thrilling. This is a book for academics, researchers, every avid reader who has spent hours going through indexes in search of something that could help their work.

I received a copy of the book by NetGalley but the opinions in this review are my own.

'Index, A History of the' by Dennis Duncan. Thank you to Netgalley publisher's Penguin Press UK - Allen Lane, for this review copy. I chose this book because, like the author, I have a keen interest in language and literature and it was fascinating to see how Mr. Duncan charts the history of textual indexes from the earliest days of scrolls right up to the present technologically diverse world. (Due to my own interests I particually enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes references in Chapter 7)
. This book was very informative and the writer has a keen humour and it made the book a pleasure to read. If you have an interest in reading then this is an interesting take on it.

The humble index is often ignored by readers and Mr. Duncan charts its rise and reminds us all of its uselfulness.

So, this sort of does what it says on the tin: it’s a history of the humble index. They’re in every reference book, but if you’re my age or younger, you’ve had the safety net of the computer search since you were old enough to be starting on serious research. But before Google and before the computer library catalogue, the index was the key to research and learning. Dennis Duncan’s book examines how the index came into being, how it has evolved through history and how it’s use has evolved too. I’m not sure I’d ever given much thought to how indexes started, or even what people did about an index before the printing press, but now I know all the answers! And it’s fascinating to see that the same sort of arguments that are made about computer search diminishing people’s knowledge were made about the index when it first appeared – if you don’t have to read the whole book, how can you possibly be getting the full benefit of the book? This would make a great gift for the book worm or history fan in your life this Christmas as well.

Started well but then just went on and on, eventually gave up; life is way to, short. I like the cover.

I have to admit that I’ve never given indexes much thought – they are just there, essential, invaluable but taken for granted. But I won’t be taking them for granted any more after reading this entertaining, eminently readable, informative and sometimes surprising history of the index in all its manifestations from its inception to today’s digital indexing. It’s a serious, scholarly and meticulously researched account but one leavened with many fascinating anecdotes to counteract some of the more academic sections, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A must read for all bibliophiles.

There is a kind of quirky non-fiction book where an interested amateur scrapes the surface of a seemingly trivial topic and gets a minor amount of material and a few half decent jokes in. This is not that kind of book, not least because the jokes here are good. Dennis Duncan knows Indexes, he has studied them and will continue to study them. And this book, despite its flippant fun title, gets the non-fiction balance just right. There is scholarship galore here, from Greek letters to a romp through indexes of the bible, all the way up to the death and rebirth of the index (something he takes with a sanguine air even though I read it on an e-book which at that point had no index).

This is a book about how information technology can be beautiful, and Duncan does not shy away from his admiration of those who invented the Index on the fly. He is a little more jaunty about about those who indexed ever single word in the Bible, and delights in finding the politics and backbiting jibes hidden or sometimes in plain sight in indexes. He grudgingly accepts Tables Of Contents as a kind of index, but will also show how tawdry they can be too. What comes across most strongly is his delight in this being his unfettered field of study, and how he enjoys sharing it. So the book has a perfect structure, as it rattles through history (whilst taking appropriate diversions), but also he has a way of pepping up what might otherwise be a dry anecdote (bearing in mind that literary index jokes are pretty much the dictionary definition of dry anecdote).

"Index, A History of the" is one of the few non-fiction reads I have had over the last couple of years that I could have read more of. It doesn't appear to miss much out but I can just tell with the mastery of the subject that Duncan had to leave plenty on the cutting room floor - not least international indexes (and maybe he could do a double act with The Chinese Typewriter and consider indexes in non-alphabetic languages). For something that almost appears to be a joke subject, he justifies his interest almost instantly and then drags the reader in to. A book of the year for me,

I love an index. I love a glossary. As a former school librarian, this book took me to my happy place. It offers a fascinating history of life between the folios. A potentially dry subject made interesting with surprising information and facts about the importance of these pernickety lists.