The Mystical Language of Icons by Solrunn Nes

I received a review copy of The Mystical Language of Icons by Solrunn Nes from the Eerdmans Bookstore. I've read a couple of other books on icons but this one is written by an iconographer and stands out for its abundance of illustrations. The book begins by showing how icons are painted with pictures of the icon at the various stages in production. There is a short history of the emergence of icons and an explanation of their function. There is a section on the characteristics of the form of icons that pointed out the use of inverse perspective in icons. I had never noticed this before. The bulk of the rest of the book contains beautiful full-color icons with commentary. I highly recommend it.