Lunch with Fritz M. – good discussion – he was surprised at your blog as he has never checked on it. Now that Bob Evans restaurants have free wireless you two can venture on such things at the table. You were surprised he has a list of smaller books relating to geneology beside the two you have, online under Frederick J. Milligan. A bit on Ohio and national politics, then he spoke of a book he is reading and thought you might enjoy.
The title of the novel is The Charlemagne Pursuit by Steve Berry. The Library Journal says: “[Steve] Berry outdoes himself [in his] best book to date.” USA Today says: “Plenty of classic touch points are in this cliffhanger; Nazis, secret missions, shootouts, [and] cryptic journals. . . . In Malone, Berry has created a classic, complex hero.” And, Publisher’s Weekly says, “Those who relish suspense in The Da Vinci Code vein will snap this one up, the best yet in the series.”
In the Writer’s Note, pages 542 and 543 Berry states: “The strange writing and manuscript pages . . . are reproduced from the Voynich manuscript. That book rests in the Beineche Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, and is generally regarded as the most mysterious writing on the planet.”
The Wikipedia introduction to the manuscript begins as follows:
“The Voynich manuscript is a handwritten book thought to have been written in the 15th or 16th century and comprising about 240 vellum pages, most with illustrations. The author, script, and language remain unknown: for these reasons it has been described as "the world's most mysterious manuscript".
Generally presumed to be some kind of ciphertext, the Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British codebreakers from both World War I and World War II. Yet it has defied all decipherment attempts, becoming a historical cryptology cause célèbre. The mystery surrounding it has excited the popular imagination, making the manuscript a subject of both fanciful theories and novels: numerous possible authors have been suggested for it.”
This is enough to get you interested even though Berry’s book is fiction.
I have not heard of this before today, but then there is so much I do not know. The manuscript is online and free to read and it can be enlarged to see great detail. I remember reading The Codebreakers – The Story of Secret Writing by David Kahn in the middle eighties, but I don’t remember any mention of the manuscript. Not that I have the memory for it in any case.
Time to ready yourself to the class supper at five-thirty. This is it for the day. Post. – Amorella.
As Berry's book is about an intelligent human civilization long, long ago, even before Plato's concepts of Atlantis, I may find use for this in book four.
Possible. You'll have to research and read, two of your favorite vocations. - Amorella.
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