Please read my book review at my blog site.

https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2024/01/book-review-history-of-reading-by.html ( )

Other books may do a better job of telling the chronological development of literacy , but none come as close to expressing the sheer joy of reading as this does.

More of a literary biography than a true history, Manguel intertwines his well traveled, well read life with the life of the written word and asks some pointed questions along the way.

At times I felt it was a little self indulgent and overly academic, but then the author switched from discussions of Greek philosophy to his joy at finding a set of Enid Blyton “Noddy” books in a bookstore in Cyprus, or talks about picking up a couple of manga volumes at a Japanese airport and spending the flight making up his own narrative to go with the art, and I remembered that he is first and foremost someone who just loves to read. ( )

This book was a very comfortable read. It makes one feel lowkey nationalistic about the act of reading books. I felt as if I was a torch bearer of an ancient culture going back millenia, which feeling was only exacerbated by the thoughts that most people don't read books anymore, and that in the future the number will only decrease, and already many consider reading books a waste of time, which could be true if one were to look at things purely from a price-benefit perspective. It is a very well researched and thorough book, well supplied with plates and illustrations.

Really informative, but for some reason, I just couldn't get all that excited. ( )