Book Review-A History of Reading By Alberto Manguel

I was encouraged to jump into this book on the history of reading after having read Alberto Manguel’s short book Packing My Library (https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2023/03/book-review-packing-my-library-by.html), on his elegy to his library in France, it was the library that he had wanted for all of his life but one that he had to give it up for unspecified reason. This book on the history of reading had also been cited by Maryanne Wolf in her book Proust and the Squid (https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2023/10/book-review-proust-and-squid-by.html) as a source of her research on reading. It was a serendipitous discovery for me as I would not have consciously sought out a history of reading.

The book comprises of 22 essays, with ten essays collected under the section titled Acts of Reading, and ten essays collected under the section titled Powers of the Reader. A leading section and essay titled The Last Page  led off the book and an ending section and essay titled  Endpaper Pages. What happened between The Last Page and Endpaper Pages was sheer reading pleasure about reading.

Manguel is erudite and a thorough researcher, more importantly, he is an excellent storyteller, never straying too far into pedantisms yet also digging into the granularities deep enough to satisfy the reader’s curiosity. The subject of the book may seem to be a topic that could be a snoozer; I must admit that I am one of the select many who find the subject more than a little interesting, but I am the kind of geek that this book was written for. \

Where else does one find out that it was the norm in the time of St. Augustine for readers read loudly and in public, whereas our habits are that such that reading is done silently. Or having the history of language, writing, and reading explained in an erudite and clear fashion. Or having the neurological theories of how humans developed the ability to create and  decipher written language and develop the ability to suss out the different meaning that are imbued in the words, albeit his explanations are not at the levels of neuroscientific depth as a textbook but it is clear and delivered in a concise manner.

Far be it for me to recite the content of the book in a book review, because the surprise to the reader comes from the unexpectedness of the topic and the histories in the form of the stories woven into the essays are not only informational but completely entertaining.

Manguel writes with the rigorousness and discipline of a literary scholar that he is. He has also selected the subject of each essay with foresight and structure that gives the reader sufficient guidance to accumulate the facts through the stories and references that he cited. The book is an interesting conglomeration of genres: as a serious history book and as an informative tome to be read for pleasure.

It is my habit to set aside time at the end of the day for relaxing reading. The books that I read are usually some mindless fictions, mostly mysteries, so that my mind can be relaxed in order to prepare for sleep; or a book of essays that are short enough to be consumed pre-slumber while also interesting enough to give my mind a gentle workout, to exhaust it enough to make it welcome the advancing sandman. This book fits the bill on many occasions. I did not read it with a set of expectations, I read it as a source of pleasure and  knowledge. The essays consistently drew in my interest, and I gained knowledge with every essay.

I would suggest reading this book with the same easy and unhurried approach. The beauty of this subject is that I plan on returning to the book as a reference on the history of language in general as well as a handy book of essays, to be re-read and enjoyed.

I so enjoyed this book that I had sought our other books written by Alberto Manguel before I had finished this one so that I can have the books in my possession so that I can reach for them when the mood strikes.

 

On Reading self-help books

When I first started working, an older and wiser co-worker told me: “There are two ways to do things: one is the way they tell you how to do it, written or otherwise and then there is the way that things get done right.”

I have kept that in my mind and it has more of less rings true. There have been circumstances, miracles of all miracles, where the two ways coincide and we get a cosmic convergence of disparate minds, but that’s not often.

What brings this up is that I have been reading a number of books written to show the masses how to be creative, how does innovation occur, how to be gritty and resilient, how to be happy, how change our mindset, how to cope with the technology invading our world, and all of the other things that are complicating/enabling our lives. These books are generally written by journalists or economists, or university researchers. They are categorized as either leadership books, psychology books, business books, or self-help books.

They all share a structure though. The book and indeed, each chapter may start with a pithy quote which may or may not be pertinent to the chapter, but it is there. The quotes are usually coming from someone famous who has the gravitas to give purpose to the chapter with their really deep thoughts.

The book starts with a declaration that is supposed to be evocative if not mind expanding. The author would mark his territory; define his problem, the parameters, and the constraints. He would also throw in a bunch of stories which would seemingly give proof to his claims. The stories would be humorous but meaningful at the same time. Some authors would go for the anecdotal approach: great stories without much data. Some would go deep into their research and give you a lot of data, and if they are good scientists and researchers, they would also provide caveats and forewarnings about assumptions.

Support and argumentation would proceed in this way through a number of chapters laying down a recipe or formula: point, anecdote and/or data, another point, more anecdote and/or data, and so on. In the end there would be a summary and a unification of all the deep thoughts all boiled down into an easy to follow, no thinking required on the part of the reader. The promise is that whichever problem the book is supposed to resolve is so simple, so uncomplicated that a simple sequence of if-then scenarios could resolve all situations that may come. Just like the premise I started with: there is a documented solution.

In real life, we figure out what to do and how to do it. Sometimes we need to do this because the known wisdom is insufficient and confusing. Sometimes it is inadequate, but sometimes it is because human ingenuity just won’t take the status quo for granted and sometimes people come up with much better solutions by going away from the status quo.

For me that is the road less traveled, injection of human curiosity and critical thinking and solving things by the seat of the pants, an experiential approach is usually the most effective.

Indeed there is something to be said for having a reference book ready to list the best practices, but I would argue that most of these books are by and large not a list of best practices. They are a list of what people believe to be best practices and most are just people throwing stuff out. Even those who have a basis with data and documented successes, the authors don’t go into far enough depth in their explanation of their thinking to warn of the potholes along the way. Some of these omissions come from the fact that you don’t know what you don’t know and you can’t anticipate everything. Yet some omissions are more insidious: they don’t want their claims weakened or invalidated AND those careful caveats don’t sell books.

I still read those books, I am not cynical enough to ignore the possibilities available that comes from unorthodox thinking. But I do it with a very jaundiced eye. I bring to the task of reading these books with the eyes of a technical reviewer for engineering papers.