A review by scubacat
Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World by Nancy Goldstone, Lawrence Goldstone

4.0

This was an interesting, incredibly informative book. I found the subject matter and the history fascinating. It is in DESPERATE need of an editor, however. The book is WAYYYYYYY too long. The main focus of the book is a particular historical figure (Michael Servetus) and his banned book. But in giving us the story behind this person and his most famous writings, we also get the entire history of the printed word, the entire history of religion and the split between Catholics and Protestants, we learn the basis for Lutheranism, Calvinism, Unitarianism, and much more. We also learn the entire life story (not kidding - starting from birth!) of every person that ever came into contact with Servetus or his book. Not just during his lifetime, but also in the centuries after as his rare book copies traveled from hand to hand. We also got a generous historical rendition of each place that Servetus ever lived, and each place the book ever landed. I am not kidding. It got to be comical - we start a new chapter and 30 pages in to the life history of a person, we finally learn that at the age of 60 they were able to begin their passion of collecting books. Now we got the story of how the rare copy of Servetus' book came into their possession. Then that person dies and gives their copy to someone else. Cue the life story of the new person. I found myself reading paragraphs and then stopping to think how I could have summarized that information into one sentence. So overall, I do recommend the book. I learned a lot from it. But I caution any reader to be very patient and have a lot of time on their hands.