Alberto Manguel is up there with Oliver Sacks as one of those writers who exudes so much warmth and humanity in simply writing about himself and the world he observes. I’ve loved reading his books about reading – and he seems to have an inexhaustible store of them – and stalled in his book on curiosity, but I had yet to read A Reading Diary: A Year of Favourite Books (2004). In it, he revisits twelve of his favourite books – from June to the following May, slightly oddly. Maybe he had the idea in June and couldn’t wait.
Manguel has an amazingly eclectic taste. While my favourite books would span a couple of countries and the best part of a century, Manguel’s cover centuries and the whole globe. Margaret Atwood mingles with Goethe; Cervantes with H.G. Wells; Sei Shonagon with Adolfo Bioy Casares.
Each chapter is an enjoyable, curious meander through a book and Manguel’s life – heavy on the book and light on the life, but certainly a bit of both. Often Manguel will throw us right into the middle of his thoughts, not pausing to explain what the book is (and I’d be very impressed if anybody was familiar with all twelve disparate books). It feels a bit like a notebook of jottings – rather like Wittgenstein’s notebooks – because observations follow observations; a few pages of analysis are followed by a couple of quotations and then the gossip from the postwoman. What holds it all together is Manguel’s inquisitive personality – his clear love of literature, and the vitality he sees in it, and passes on to the reader.
Undeniably, I enjoyed the chapters most where I’d read the book in question. That was only three – The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, Kim by Rudyard Kipling, and The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. I was familiar with a couple of others (who doesn’t know Sherlock Holmes?) but some meant nothing to me at all. That made me feel a bit more lost at the opening of each chapter, but I wasn’t here for specific literary criticism – more for the immersion in the delight of a life of reading. On that front, Manguel more than delivers.
Sounds interesting. I have only ever read quotes by Alberto Manguel of which there are quite a few nice ones. I’ll put that on my ever increasing wishlist.
What were the other books he read?
Happy reading,
Marianne from
Let’s Read
Ah, don’t have it with me, I’m afraid, but it’s quite a range!
This was my first Manguel I think and wonderful, despite the fact I hadn’t read all of the books he covers, I wondered about the June start too…
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His book The Library at Night is one of my favourites and I’ve had this one on the stack for ages. Not because I don’t want to read it, but because I want to read it TOO MUCH. So it’s just there, waiting patiently, for me to calm down a little. Maybe, in the meantime, I should scan the contents and see if I can’t read a couple more of the books he considers in detail.
I feel like I’d never really encountered a bibliomemoir until this year, and all of a sudden they’re EVERYWHERE! I really admire how you pushed on through the chapters based on books you’ve never read; I always find myself confused and can’t resist the temptation to skip ahead to more familiar territory.
This was my first Manguel and I loved it. His enthusiasm is wonderful and his personality comes through so vividly that it was a delight to read about even the books I knew nothing about (which, like you, was most of them).