Alberto Manguel

Manguel, a guide of irrepressible enthusiasm, conducts a unique library tour that extends from his childhood bookshelves to the "complete" libraries of the Internet, from Ancient Egypt and Greece to the Arab world, from China and Rome to Google. He ponders the doomed library of Alexandria as well as the personal libraries of Charles Dickens, Jorge Luis Borges, and others. He recounts stories of people who have struggled against tyranny to preserve...

"As a scholar of Jewish law, a physician, and a philosopher, Maimonides was a singular figure. His work in extracting all the commanding precepts of Jewish law from the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud, interpreting and commenting on them, and translating them into terms that would allow students to lead sound Jewish lives became the model for translating God's word into a language comprehensible by all. His work in medicine--which brought him such fame...

"Curiosity has been seen through the ages as the impulse that drives our knowledge forward and the temptation that leads us toward dangerous and forbidden waters. The question "Why?" has appeared under a multiplicity of guises and in vastly different contexts throughout the chapters of human history. Why does evil exist? What is beauty? How does language inform us? What defines our identity? What is our responsibility to the world? In this book, Alberto...

"Mathematics student G is trying to resurrect his studies, which is proving difficult as he finds himself - and not for the first time - drawn into investigating a series of mysterious crimes. After meeting with a member of the Lewis Carroll Brotherhood, a startling new discovery by Carroll's great niece rocks Oxford, leading to deadly plots, salacious pictures and murder. G must stretch his mathematical mind to its limits to solve the mystery and...

"In this major collection of his essays, Alberto Manguel, whom George Steiner has called 'the Casanova of reading,' argues that the activity of reading, in its broadest sense, defines our species. 'We come into the world intent on finding narrative in everything,' writes Manguel, 'landscape, the skies, the faces of others, the images and words that our species create.' Reading our own lives and those of others, reading the societies we live in and...