Hot Type: The Magnificent Machine that Gave Birth to Mass Media and Drove Mark Twain Mad

by Jeff Jarvis

384 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication August 20, 2026

About the author

Jeff Jarvis is an American journalist writing for publications such as New York Daily News, the San Francisco Examiner, and The Guardian. In 2006 he became an associate professor at City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism, directing its new media program. He is a co-host on This Week in Google, a show on the TWiT Network.


Picture by Robert Scoble

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. I thought that the discussions around patents, legal maneuverings and personalities were quite good. I also enjoyed the history of companies I know today. I didn’t quite get how all the typesetting equipment worked, but I suspect that in order to explain this adequately would have taken a much longer book. The pacing was quite good except for the Coda, which I found too long. On the other hand, I found the Afterword, Acknowledgments and even the colophon very interesting. Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Academic for the advance reader copy.