Alberto Manguel's "A Reader on Reading" was not quite what I expecting. I thought that it would be a collection of essays and reviews about various books and/or authors, with his usual interesting comments. Instead, this collection of essays covers a variety of topics-politics, current events, history, religion, mythology, e-books, and more. The essays do have some connection to books or literature, in some way. These essays were written from the late 1990s through 2010, when the book was published.
You learn that Manguel loves Lewis Carroll's Alice books (every section and chapter has a quote and illustration from one of the Alice books), he believes Homer was not a real person but created as necessity to fill in a gap (which saddens me), that during an emergency surgery that required a 10-day hospital stay his only book of choice was Don Quixote (which I still have not read, but certainly plan to), and that he hates "American Psycho" by Bret Ellis, preferring to throw it out rather than giving it away to someone (no plans to read that book!).
This is not a book to sit down and read cover-to-cover, plan to read the essays at different sittings and different times, a chapter here, a chapter there. I even re-read some of the chapters after I had already read the whole book because they should be savored, listened and paid attention to, and enjoyed.
Some of my favorite chapters include "The Blind Bookkeeper" (mostly about Homer), "The Secret Sharer", not about Joseph Conrad but about book editors (did you know that editors exist only in North America and the British Commonwealth? It is changing in some places, but in most of the rest of the world they have proof-readers to correct errors only, not to cut and change for commercial reasons), "Reading White for Black" (about translators), "Art and Blasphemy" (religion and books), "End of Reading", and, especially, "Perseverance of Truth" which is about truth in literature and what happens to those who tell it (look out Socrates). Sadly, the world is getting far worse since this was written, here in the United States, and elsewhere.
When reading (and re-reading) the essays, I suggest noting down chapters you like, pages that seem significant, underline phrases that inspire, anger, or interest you, and like Manguel, write in the margins! The essays will inspire you to read other books as well, as I have already re-read the Alice books after I finished it...
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The author asks the question why do we have libraries filled with books in the final essay of this wonderful book. That question is answered on almost every page of this collection about the life, the love, and the joy of reading. Sit down and dip into the book at any point and relish the delight of reading about the life of reading - the world of Alice and the Red Queen and so many other wondrous things. ( )

Pinokyo'nun okumayı öğrendikten sonra bütün yapabileceği, ders kitabı laflarını papağan gibi tekrarlamaktır. Sayfadaki kelimeleri özümser ama hazmetmez: Kitaplar hakiki anlamda onun olmaz, çünkü hâlâ, maceralarının sonunda bile, onları kendine ve dünyaya ilişkin tecrübelerine uygulamaktan acizdir.

Deneyimin kitapları, kitapların kişisel deneyimi zenginleştirdiği ve dönüştürdüğü yaratıcı bir okuma nasıl olur? Okumalar Okuması tam da bu sorunun yanıtı. Che Guevara'dan Borges'e birçok tanıdık yüz, İlyada'dan Alice Harikalar Diyarında'ya kadar birçok kitap Manguel'in okumalarında, içten ve kışkırtıcı yorumlarında yeniden hayat buluyor.

Alberto Manguel is the epitome of the erudite idealistic booklover. He ushers us into his library of ideas, knowing that his and our enjoyment of books, the reading, the collecting, the savouring, will be mutually enhanced by the sharing of ideas. He is one of those rare authors who make you feel that he is putting into words your own unformed thoughts. ”Because I loved books (which I collected with miserly passion) I felt the guilty shame of someone in love with a freak.” You recognise them on the page as your own, and are grateful for his immense skills of articulating what you didn’t know you thought, until you read them. And then he tells us so much more, he is showing us worlds, and he is our knowledgeable guide.

He doesn’t restrict his essays to books and libraries. They are about reading, about words, or Words, and their power. So his subjects are wide-ranging. He decries the falsity and hypocrisy of wordsmiths such as Maria Varga Llosa and his essays on Argentina’s dirty war. He chafes at the North American use of the editor in publishing. ”Before going out into the world, every writer of fiction in North America (and most of the British Commonwealth) acquires, as it were, a literary back-seat driver.” He thinks that this is because of the “mercantile fabric of American society. Because books must be saleable merchandise, experts must be employed to ensure that the products are profitably commercial. At its worst this unifying task produces mass-market romances; at its best it cuts Thomas Wolfe down to size.” As always, he has quotations to fit every need. When Graham Greene was asked to change the title of his novel Travels with My Aunt, his eight word telegram said, “Easier to change publisher than to change title.”
Delightful. ( )

Went back and forth on this book 3 stars or 4? Went with 4 because its so well written. Many of the essays are exquisite many are annoying.

I despise Alice in wonderland so the fact that it is woven throughout nearly every essay grated.

Overall if you are looking for essays on reading and literature as well as some nice insights on authors, I recommend. Personally, I probably wouldn't have read. ( )