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Literature & Fiction

MANGUEL, Alberto

Contemporary

HarperCollins, Publishers

A History of Reading

Reprint of the first U.S. edition. Tracks the history of the transmission of the printed word to the reader. Intermixes this story with sub-plots concerning book thieves and anarchists, book burners and censors, and others. xii , 372 pages. cloth-backed boards, dust jacket.. 8vo..

History & Criticism

VIKING

This study of the history of reading goes from the earliest examples of the clay tablets and cuneiform of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt via the invention of printing in the 15th century to the birth of a mass reading public and today's digital revolution. It argues that it is the demands and expectations of the reader, acting alongside the creative will of the writer, that is the evolutionary motor of literary forms and genres. From man's first use of the written word simply as a form of reference, to the emergence of the first holy or devotional texts, and onto the development of fictions, both poetic and novelistic, this work aims to both challenge and enlighten.

Reference

Flamingo

At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book—that string of confused, alien ciphers—shivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader. Noted essayist Alberto Manguel moves from this essential moment to explore the 6000-year-old conversation between words and that magician without whom the book would be a lifeless object: the reader. Manguel lingers over reading as seduction, as rebellion, as obsession, and goes on to trace the never-before-told story of the reader's progress from clay tablet to scroll, codex to CD-ROM.

Penguin??Books

Internationally acclaimed anthologist Alberto Manguel offers an immensely enjoyable collection of 22 brilliant stories from across the globe, written under the merry canopy of Christmas. The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories features tales by the best master storytellers, including Alice Munro, John Cheever, Richard Ford, Anne Beattie,William Trevor,Muriel Spark, Paul Auster, Mavis Gallant, Alistair MacLeod, and Vladimir Nabokov.

The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories

Penguin Canada

Selected and Introduced by Alberto Manguel 
Summer is the season for reading. Whether lying on the beach or curled up in a chair on the veranda, on a plane to faraway places or taking in the view from a hotel balcony, reading is the most decadent of summer activities. In The Penguin Book of Summer Stories, internationally acclaimed anthologist Alberto Manguel offers a wonderful collection of twenty brilliant stories set in the leisurely time of summer to enjoy and, at the same time, to follow other people’s mysterious lives or take part in someone else’s dramatic adventure. Margaret Atwood * Ray Bradbury * Italo Calvino * Albert Camus * Mohamed Choukri * Julio Cortazar * Anita Desai * Helen Garner * Isabel Huggan * Shimaki Kensaku * Bernard MacLaverty * Daphne du Maurier * Gabriel Garcia Márquez * Ludmila Petrushevskaya * Wallace Stegner * Graham Swift * Elizabeth Taylor * John Updike * Tennessee Williams * A.B. Yehoshua

Penguin Book of Summer Stories

Short Stories & Anthologies

At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book—that string of confused, alien ciphers—shivered into meaning, and at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader. Noted essayist and editor Alberto Manguel moves from this essential moment to explore the six-thousand-year-old conversation between words and that hero without whom the book would be a lifeless object: the reader. Manguel brilliantly covers reading as seduction, as rebellion, and as obsession and goes on to trace the quirky and fascinating history of the reader’s progress from clay tablet to scroll, codex to CD-ROM.

In this gorgeously imagined novel, a journalist interviews those who knew—or thought they knew—Alejandro Bevilacqua, a brilliant, infuriatingly elusive South American writer and author of the masterpiece In Praise of Lying. But the accounts of those in his circle of friends, lovers, and enemies become increasingly contradictory, murky, and suspect. Is everyone lying, or just telling their own subjective version of the truth? As the literary investigation unfolds and a chorus of Bevilacqua’s peers piece together the fractured reality of his life, thirty years after his death, only the reader holds the power of final judgment. 
In All Men Are Liars, Alberto Manguel pays homage to literature’s inventions as well as explores whether we can ever truly know someone, and how, by whom,and for what, we ourselves will be remembered.

All Men Are Liars

Literary

From Atlantis to Tolkien's Middle-Earth, this Baedeker of the imagination takes readers on a tour of more than 1,200 realms invented by storytellers from Homer's day to our own. And now, brought up to date with dozens of invaluable new entries and illustrations, such as Umberto Eco's Island of the Day Before, Salman Rushdie's Sea of Stories, and Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, this volume is even more authoritative and comprehensive. Profiled within are lands drawn from Lewis Carroll, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne, L. Frank Baum, C. S. Lewis, Jorge Luis Borges, and more. Written with the wit and insight that has made Alberto Manguel a bestselling authority on literature, the book is also a visual treat: more than 200 original illustrations and maps reveal the lay of the land in Oz, Lilliputia, Narnia, and elsewhere. Here are worlds enough and more for every reader, fantasy fan, and passionate browser.

The Dictionary of Imaginary Places: The Newly Updated and Expanded Classic

Children's Books

GUADALUPI, Gianni

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

Alberto Manguel has enchanted hundreds of thousands of readers with his bestselling books, including The Dictionary of Imaginary Places. Now he has assembled a personal collection of his own essays that will enchant anyone interested in reading, writing, or the world. Through personal stories and literary reflections, in a style rich in humor and gentle scholarship, Manguel leads his readers to reflect on the links that bind the physical world to our language that describes it. The span of his attention in these twenty-three essays is enthralling: from "Who Am I?," in which he recounts the first adventures of childhood reading, to "Borges in Love," a memoir of the great blind writer's passions; from his first encounters with the evils of prejudice to a meditation on the death of Che Guevara; from a tour of his library to evocations of such of his favorite writers as Cortázar and Chesterton. A voyage deep into the subversive heart of words, Into the Looking-Glass Wood is fired by the author's humanity, insatiable curiosity, and steadfast belief in the essential power, mystery, and delight of the written word.

Into the Looking-Glass Wood: Essays on Books, Reading, and the World

Essays & Correspondence

Mariner Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by MANGUEL, Alberto. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by MANGUEL, Alberto

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by MANGUEL, Alberto. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

News from a Foreign Country Came

A History of Reading

A History of Reading

A History of Reading

The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories

Penguin Book of Summer Stories

A History of Reading

All Men Are Liars

The Dictionary of Imaginary Places: The Newly Updated and Expanded Classic

Into the Looking-Glass Wood: Essays on Books, Reading, and the World