A Reading Diary: A Year Of Favourite Books

Description

While travelling in Calgary, Alberto Manguel was struck by how the novel he was reading seemed to reflect the social chaos of the world he was living in. An article in the daily paper would be suddenly illuminated by a passage in the novel; a long reflection would be prompted by a single word. He decided to keep a record of these moments, rereading a book a month, and formed A Reading Diary: a volume of notes, impressions of travel, of friends, of public and private events, all elicited by his reading. From Don Quixote (January) to The Sign of Four (October) to The Wind in the Willows (December), Manguel leads us on an enthralling adventure in literature and life, and demonstrates how, for the passionate reader, one is utterly inextricable from the other.

Internationally acclaimed as an essayist and novelist, Alberto Manguel is also a prize-winning translator and has edited ten anthologies. Author of the award-winning A History of Reading, News from a Foreign Country Came and Stevenson Under the Palm Trees, his most recent book is A Reading Diary. Born in Buenos Aires, he has lived in Italy, England, Tahiti and Canada, and now lives in France, where he was named an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters.

* Inspirational and enormously entertaining. Big Issue * Charminly erudite ... these warm and wise fragments of memoir, observation and meditation all belong in the class of books that readers - and re-readers - aore, rather tahn gate-keeping critics admire. Manguel dives back with infectious delight ... Independent * A remarkable achievement. I finished the book with a sense of gratitude to have shared this journey through time in the company of a mind so lively, knowledgeable and sympathetic. -- P.D. James * Its ebb and flow beautifully celebrate the way the best fiction works: quiety informing, embracing, providing connections and sometimes even changing the way one sees reality. Metro * An elegant, quaint and sensitive meditation on the nature of reading. Times Literary Supplement * Certain to give civilized pleasure. Observer * A love letter written to reading. -- George Steiner