All the world from A to Z and back again

ENTER the realm of the alphabet and, beyond the rote mumbling of the ABC or the careful construction of keys to forgotten languages, lies a fascinating tangle of symbolism and significance. Johanna Drucker’s The Alphabetic Labyrinth (Thames and Hudson, pp 320, £29.95) unravels the tangle to the advantage of the curious reader as she travels across the centuries from Greek philosophy to computer typography in the age of electronic media.