No stars since I didn't read a lot of it. The text pales in comparison (for style and accuracy) with John Barton's A History of the Bible and some of the claims it makes are not in line with up-to-date scholarship. So, I thought I would just skim through it for the pictures, but again I was disappointed. Pictures of giant bibles aren't very impressive in a book that isn't giant itself. Perhaps if they showed someone holding a giant bible for standing next to it, the reader could get a sense of its immensity. Likewise with small bibles. You really need to see these things in person to get much of an impression. If you haven't recently read a better history of the bible, you may get more out of this than I did.

The Book: A History of the Bible, by Christopher de Hamel, was well written, informative and worthy of a 5-star review. I've read about a dozen books on the history of the Bible (my focus is on early English Bibles), and this book filled in details I hadn't read elsewhere. The Book contains many photographs of manuscripts, and the writing style was easy to follow and engaging. I tend to judge books based on how many notes I take, and I took enough that it was worth my time.

I had expected much of the information to overlap with other books I've read, so I was pleasantly surprised to find there was a lot of information that was new to me. I particularly enjoyed reading about different manuscripts and seeing pictures of these amazing works of art. I was reminded of the book "The Bible Illuminated: How Art Brought the Bible to an Illiterate World" by Karen York, but this book goes into more detail about the history of Bible transmission and translations, not just focusing on Illuminated manuscripts.

I felt the writing style was easier for me to follow than David Daniell's "The Bible in English: It's History and Influence" (which I can also recommend). The style reminded me of two books by Donald Brake: "A Visual History of the English Bible: The Tumultuous Tale of the World's Best-selling Book" and "A Visual History of the King James Bible: Dramatic Story of the World's Best-Known Translation" (both recommended). The Book is a nice middle ground for someone who wants to go more in depth than the two books by Brake, but isn't ready to commit the time to read Daniell's book.

I have just a few quibbles. 1) Because The Book has a large quantity of pictures, the whole book is printed on semi-gloss paper, and light reflecting off the pages caused eyestrain. I was often only able to read 10-15 pages before taking a break. 2) The bibliography is in prose format with comments, rather than a simple list of resources. I often scan through bibliographies looking for other books I might be interested in, but I skipped it this time. 3) The book is a paperback with dust jacket (I believe it's a first edition, but I'm not sure). It's rather hefty at about 350 pages of semi-gloss paper. I was a bit afraid I'd rip the cover while reading it; fortunately I didn't. This book really deserves to be a hardcover. ( )