RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewThe title of Ferrara’s book, The Greatest Invention, might sound bombastic, but the book isn’t. One reason is Ferrara’s conversational style, rendered into lively English by Todd Portnowitz. Ferrara says she wrote the book the way she talks to friends over dinner, and that’s exactly how it reads. Instead of telling a chronological history of writing, she moves freely from script to script, island to island. It can be a bit dizzying but also great fun, and she is constantly by our side, prodding us with questions, offering speculations, reporting on exciting discoveries ... Ferrara also lets us in on engaging discussions with collaborators ... doubles as a manifesto for collaborative research ... I would have liked to hear more about the fraught moments when writers have met non-writers and taken down their stories, as happened in countless colonial encounters.
