Paul Binding

This is a beautifully produced book and a first edition, but these are the best things about it. There is a lot of information about obscure people living in an obscure place which is all very interesting but Binding fails to really inspire me. There's something a little bit 'off' about his tone. It's like he's lecturing to himself. He also rambles and strays into subjects that have no connection with the thread of the book. And at the end he commits the cardinal sin of becoming emotional. You can actually hear his voice shaking. Embarrassingly he goes on about Erasmus' Praise of Folly for a few pages and then says that if the kinship between it and Ortelius isn't immediately apparent 'this book will have been written to no purpose'. Oh dear!… (meer)