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A Reader On Reading (2006)

by Alberto Manguel(Favorite Author)

4.04 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

030015982X (ISBN13: 9780300159820)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Yale University Press

review 1: This is the second book I read by Alberto Manguel and I am well pleased. In a very artistic, at times political and at other times spiritual, he helps broaden the understanding of what reading is all about as well as its impact on the reader. I wasn't thrilled with the fact that every chapter was introduced by a quote on Alice's Adventure in Wonderland, in part because it didn't always fit the content of the chapter and in part because I still haven't grown enough to fully appreciate fiction. However, the implicid correlations were rich and challenging throughout. He writes on how the world and reading is so self-revealatory. "The old metaphor that sees the world as a book we read and in which we too are read..." pg. 274, and furthermore how what we read becomes in pa... morert, our reality... "The many faces (all our own) that await our inquisitorial eye in dreams and in books and in everyday life end up, alas, becoming real" Pg. 43. He continues to give the reader more to ruminate on regarding reality. Correlating a mythical figure such as Perseus with a historical one, Moses, to illustrate that "reality, the place in which we stand, cannot be seen as long as we are in it. It is the process of "once removed " (through imagery, through allusion, throug plot) that allows us to see where and who we are." pg. 107. Dios mio, that is food for thought! Those who love to read will enjoy his confidence on the power of the reader throughout this book and in particular, that our "faith not only moves mountains but allows their very stones to speak." pg. 129. Manguel has a distinct way with story and words which enlivens the mind and gives pleasure to the soul.
review 2: I really enjoyed the section titled "Notes towards a Definition of the ideal Library"..I am grateful to the author for the chapters titled "Borges in Love" and "Borges and the longed for Jew" as it really introduced me to the writings of Borges and somehow gave me the right state of mind for reading him..sometimes this book was a bit odd e.g. "Jonah and the whale" which I skipped bits off but generally this was a very beautiful and and a intensly personal experiance which opened my eyes to a lot of things which I could not express in words. less

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