Reading history | Alberto Manguel

"The reading is necessary for life like breathing" Alberto Mangueil traces the effects of 'written, read, and printed texts' across different historical eras: he searched for them in many libraries around the world, but he also searched for them inside himself. He remembers the first word he read, and talks about his great passion for reading since childhood, and tells the story of his relationship with the great blind writer Jorge Luis Borges who used to read to him in Buenos Aires. Then he moves to the beginnings of writing, and to the art of printing books, literature, and the shape of the book, and to the act of reading and its authority. Mangueil presents a select group of the world's greats who used to write and love reading. He tells us about the Persian prince who carried his library consisting of 117,000 books on the back of a caravan of camels, classified according to the alphabet. He also recounts the story of the greatest book thief in the world, Duke Libre, or the story of the tobacco workers in Cuba who loved listening to book readings, which led them to name their cigars after the heroes of novels. This book is a story of great love; it is worthy of reading.