A History of Reading is a book by someone, Alberto Manguel, who loves books and reading.

There is much information about books, reading, and the evolution of both. It was interesting to learn that reading silently wasn't done much until centuries after the invention of writing and reading. Someone centuries ago loved reading so much he had to have his books with him wherever he went, so he had his camels trained to march in alphabetical order. Unfortunately Manguel doesn't present what should be facinating material in an interesting way. He's written a book that is a chore to read.

Good, interesting writing has a variety of sentence patterns and lengths. Manguel's are almost always 30+ words long. That gets old after awhile, especially when those sentences often include material tangential to the main idea of the sentence. That's a problem.

Another problem is he's fallen prey to the common desire of some writers to include every bit of his research into the book.

Fortunately, there are many photos to take up space in this 319 page book. Some are full page photos. But, for some reason known only to God and perhaps Manguel, he elects to describe in detail each of them. An example is a full page photo of an elderly woman in a hospice in France in 1929 who is reading in bed. Manguel takes nearly a full page to describe this photo. All the time I'm screaming in my mind: "I can see the damned thing!"

I can't recommend this book, but I'm not sorry I read it. It's the kind of book that, despite its flaws, the rewards make it almost worth reading. It's kind of like having dental work done: It's a pain to go through, but the result is positive. ( )

LE livre qui a tout changé pour moi il y a dix ans. Si vous avez perdu le goût de lire, que vous voulez connaître la petite et la grande histoire de cette pratique incongrue qu'est la lecture ou tout bonnement plonger dans l'univers d'un amoureux liseur à en perdre le souffle, lisez cet ouvrage. Un régal! ( )

Ref. capris.no: Forfatteren gir oss lesningens merkelige historie gjennom 6000 år, fra leirtavlen og papyrusrullen til CD-ROM og hypertekst. Han tar oss med på en reise gjennom tidene for å finne ut hva vi leser, hvorfor og hvordan. Vi møter bokelskere og boktyver, vi oppdager bokskatter og berømte bibliotek. Og det blir raskt klart at dette også må være en historie om leseren, altså om oss. Har register.

Read

Manguel's history is a very readable if occasionally romantic survey of that very important thing, reading. ( )