A History of ReadingAt one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book - that string of confused, alien ciphers - shivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader. Noted essayist Alberto Manguel moves from this essential moment to explore the 6000-year-old conversation between words and that magician without whom the book would be a lifeless object: the reader. Manguel lingers over reading as seduction, as rebellion, as obsession, and goes on to trace the never-before-told story of the reader's progress from clay tablet to scroll, codex to CD-ROM. |
Contents
ACTS OF READING | 25 |
The Silent Readers | 41 |
The Book of Memory | 61 |
Copyright | |
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according act of reading al-Haytham ancient André Kertész Anthony Comstock Aristotle Beatus Rhenanus became become Bible Biblia Pauperum Bibliothèque Book of Hours Borges Buenos Aires Callimachus Cambridge catalogue centuries later Christ Christian Church codex Colette Constantine copy depicted early eyes fifteenth French German glasses Greek hand history of reading Ibid images invention Jorge Luis Borges Kafka King Labé Labé's language Latin learn to read letters Libri literature London Louise Labé manuscript Martini's Mary meaning medieval memory mother Museum never novels Paris Petrarch Pliny poems poet public readings Quoted read out loud reader Rilke Roman Rome Saint Augustine Saint Nilus scholar scribe scroll Sei Shonagon Sélestat sense sibyl silent reading sometimes story tablets teacher things Thomas tion translation verses Virgil voice volumes Walt Whitman Whitman women words writing written wrote York