A History of Reading

A History of Reading does nothing short of astonish me as a reader. Alberto Manguel explains reading in a way that incorporates his life experiences into the historical aspect of reading. On page 7 Manguel said, "it is the reader who grants or recognizes in an object, place or event a certain possible readability; it is the reader who must attribute meaning to a system of signs, and then decipher it." This interests me because it relates to the idea of who came first, the writer or the reader.

I found the chapter on "The Book of Memory" to be very interesting. The last two pages of the chapter, pages 64 and 65 were particularly interesting. Manguel recalls his teacher in Buenos Aires who taught him to memorize poems. Being the theatre buff that I am I was intrigued by Manguel's mention of memorization and oral tradition in cahoots with discussing the history of reading. The short mention of his teacher's father being immortalized in Fahrenheit 451 as a book-saver was interesting because it is just another of many characters in Manguel's life that greatly effected his own ability to read and write about reading. 

Also on page 64 Manguel discusses how memory of a book can be effected by the "light" in which it is read, " we never return to the same book or even to the same page, because in the varying light we change and the book changes, and our memories grow bright and dim". This is an interesting idea because I know that when I re-read a book its never the same as that first endeavor into the pages. I agree that the "light" in which I read effects my opinion of a book. 

Within each chapter Manguel preposes excellent ideas that resonate in the mind. 

Twilight of the Books by Caleb Crain-Review

While reading "Twilight of the Books" I couldn't help but think about a conversation that I recently had with a friend. She asked me if I was reading anything at the moment because she had a good book that she wanted to throw my way. I told her that I was reading about seven different books at the moment, so I might as well throw that one on the pile as well. Then reading this article caused me to feel shame on behalf of myself and society as a whole. Relating back to the conversation that I had with my friend, I felt like a true intellectual reading so many books at one time and bringing them up in conversations here and there. Then I read Crain's article and realized that my stack of extra curricular reading was not due to my high intelligence level, but due to the copious amounts of t.v. that I watch every afternoon. Those shows and movies that I just can't stand to miss even if I have watch them twelve hundred time before. I found this article very interesting because of all the information it gives the reader, but it definitely evokes an immediate sense of shame and guilt in its readers.
There were facts that Crain presented in his article that I found very interesting. For example, in a quote from Maryanne Wolf's, "Proust and the Squid" she calls reading "not natural", which actually brings about a good point that I had never explored before. Another thought provoking quote from Wolf is that reading is a "fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude" explaining that reading can speak very strongly to a person without sound or images in a screen. I also found the comparison of literates to illiterates to be very interesting. I thought the answers that illiterate people gave made since based on the little knowledge that they had gathered.
One small thing that did bother me about Crain's article was the amount of statistics and quotations from other sources he used. Crain tired to cover too much information in one article. All of his information was relevant, but he was trying to cover every corner of a very large topic causing his article to lack in structure. This is only my opinion about his article. What did you guys think of the structure and the information that he provided? Or just any comments you may have.

A little bit about me

Hey guys! I'm Billi Jo Spencer and I'm really excited for this semester to finally start! I am a sophomore at Kennesaw State University and majoring in Secondary English Education. When I am not at school I'm usually at work. I have had many different jobs over the years, but the job that I have now is probably the most interesting. I work for the American Girl Bistro, where I serve food to pre-teen girls and their dolls. What could be more rewarding right? (I hope you caught that tad bit of sarcasm there.)
Before I came to Kennesaw State University I lived in Roswell, Ga where I attended Roswell High School. In high school I was in the theatre department and marching band. I still love both and am a big supporter of music and performance arts. This is the first time that I have ever written a blog, so I hope it goes well. Honestly I'm surprised I didn't have one before this assignment because I am always looking for feedback on my writing.