A Reading Diary: A Passionate Reader's Reflections on a Year of Books

While travelling in Canada, Alberto Manguel was struck by how the particular novel he was reading (Goethe's `Elective Affinities') seemed to reflect the social chaos of the world in which he was living. An article in a daily paper: a chance observation would suddenly be illuminated by a particular passage in the novel. He decided to keep a record of such moments by rereading a novel each month and formed a volume of notes, of impressions and observations all elicited in some way by his reading. This record has formed `A Reading Diary', and I think that many a reflective reader will enjoy it as much as I have. It matters not that I've not read many of the books referred to. I identify completely with the process of serendipity between the worlds we inhabit through reading and those we live in. `We read what we want to read, not what the author wrote.' This book is a delight: not just for what it contains but for the possibilities it unlocks. This is the first of Alberto Manguel's books that I have read, and it most certainly won't be the last. `This morning, I looked at the books on my shelves and thought that they had no knowledge of my existence. They come to life because I open them and turn their pages, and yet they don't know that I am their reader.' Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Alberto Manguel hits the nail on the head as he shows the relationship between the reader and the books read. At the deeper level of a serious reader it should become a conversation, as it does with Manguel.

Unlike other `Reading Year' books, this one is concerned with revisiting old literary friends. Manguel chooses a single book a month and, in diary form, relates it to his current activities and life parallels. He selects his titles in advance, an eclectic mix from all over the world. This short book oozes with erudition, and Manguel liberally sprinkles excellent quotes, observations, lists, and anecdotes throughout the text, all the while contemplating the larger questions of home, justice, nostalgia, memory, and war, among others. This meandering but thoughtful recording of a year of the author's life is extremely well-done.

Alberto Manguel has repeatedly shown himself to be good company to spend time with and this brief book only shores up that impression further. Each chapter is devoted to a different book he has read over the course of a year and the thoughts and associations that reading brings. It is part diary, part literary criticism, part commonplace book. For a man who has devoted himself to a lifetime of reading and writing, and who has lived an extraordinary global existence, the anecdotes and quotes he can pull together make for a enriching "conversation" spent in this man's company. A year's holiday for any reader, in the space of a few hours.