/books
Tilt, Nicholas Shrady
Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa by Nicholas Shrady. Simon \& Schuster, 2003.
If you’ve seen this book, you’ll remember it. It’s a parallelogram. It’s the leaning book about the leaning tower of Pisa. It’s kind of an obvious idea, but one does have to admire them for actually doing it. I assume the binding machines are not really designed to make parallelogram books. It won’t pack into boxes neatly. Doesn’t sit on the shelf normally. It must have cost extra all around, but it does get attention. Thankfully, the print isn’t leaning.
It’s quite an interesting book, as much about the history of Pisa, the surrounding region, and the other buildings in Pisa, as about the tower itself. It is not really a book about the technical details of the tower and efforts to keep it from falling over, though of course a bit of that makes it into the book. It is more about the people and events that produced the tower in the first place, and the way it is perceived. I found it very enjoyable.
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