Gutenberg's Apprentice

I loved this novel! Alix Christie's debut is intensely observed, so much that I felt in the dark rooms of history with the people laboring over the metal and words to bring us print, but also laboring over their own lives and love and survival.

By juxtaposing the lexicon of traditional printing with references to modern concepts like intellectual property theft, Christie spotlights intriguing parallels between fifteenth-century Europe and the digital media of the twenty-first-century world.

In this deeply researched historical novel dramatizing the biggest invention since the wheel, Alix Christie explores the intricacies surrounding the breakthrough of movable type and the first print run of Gutenberg Bibles in medieval Germany...Christie deftly imbues its telling with the drama and intensity it demands.

This ambitious but beautifully executed historical novel captures the life and times of half a millennium ago, and with the above parallels, draws us closer to today's publishing revolution.

Enthralling...With the help of contemporary experts on early printing and fifteenth century German history, Christie has written a compelling first novel. This is an exceptional work full of trickery, betrayal, and historical significance.

History buffs will savor the moment the inventor, the scribe, and the merchant make a decision that leads them out of the Middle Ages into the Renaissance. Journalist Christie's fiction debut descriptions of technical processes and medieval society are enthralling...She demonstrates a printer's precision and a dogged researcher's diligence in her painstakingly meticulous account of quattrocento innovation, technology, politics, art, and commerce.

A gorgeously written debut...An inspiring tale of ambition, camaraderie, betrayal, and cultural transformation based on actual events and people, this wonderful novel fully inhabits its age.

Christie masterfully depicts the time and energy required to print the first Bibles, a yearslong process of trial and error, tinkering with ink and type, lines and paper...A bravura debut.