reviews 284 College & Research Libraries May 1997 national visions, and private intellectu- als are not motivated to try.” Missing from the different cases is any discussion of the exchanges be- tween universities and the international “invisible” university structures that have evolved. What role do educational travelers, Fulbright scholars, interna- tional graduate training programs, and powerful authors such as Paulo Friere play in the way that higher education institutions evolve in different coun- tries? How do connections between countries, real connections that result in concrete educational practices and cultures, create organizational cultures of dependency, resistance, or isolation? But even given this, the book would be very useful in a course on comparative higher education. The cases invite dis- cussion, and each provides the starting point for projects and comparisons, es- pecially within the theoretical frame- work suggested in the introductory chap- ter.—Allan F. Burns, University of Florida, Gainesville Manguel, Alberto. A History of Reading. New York: Viking Penguin, 1996. 372p. $26.95 alk. paper. ISBN 0-670-84302-4. LC 96-2703. It probably is not too soon for the ALA to begin preparing a dossier on Manguel in support of his canonization as patron saint of reading. In the meantime, free life membership in the association would be appropriate. Alberto Manguel is one of those rare individuals of today: learned, urbane, self-aware, demo- cratic, and generous. And he is passion- ately committed to readers (whoever, wherever), reading (whatever, how- ever), and books (never met one he did not like). If, as a librarian and a reader, you are feeling a bit lonely in this, the twilight of the book, take heart: here is someone you should meet. Manguel will lead you on a delightfully idiosyncratic tour of his world—a world crowded with readers and crammed with books. At the end of his tour, he comments: “Among the books I haven’t written— among the books I haven’t read but would like to read—is The History of Read- ing.” No, this is not the history of read- ing; it is not even history in any recog- nizable sense. Rather, it is a series of Montaigne-like essays on aspects of reading that draw on the author’s own reading and experiences. Like Montaigne’s classic, A History of Read- ing is deliberately autobiographical. It is the story of the author’s reading. For Manguel, we are what we read: “The association of books with their readers is unlike any other between objects and their users. . . . Books inflict upon their readers a symbolism far more complex than that of a simple utensil.” Manguel is the dinner guest who spends the evening scanning the spines of your books and accumulating observations about their owner, just as he wants his readers to do. A noted writer—as well as noted reader—Manguel probably is not our “common reader.” He read Kipling and Stevenson to the blind Borges after school in Buenos Aires; he attended secondary school in France at a lycée outside Strasbourg where Wimpfeling and Beatus Rhenanus went to school; and he has his heroes—Augustine, Whitman, Proust, among other heavy- weights. He is fluent in several foreign languages and even cites Hildegard of Bingen from Migne. He is as comfort- able with the classics as he is with con- temporary literary criticism. His cul- tural formation is broad. A History of Reading is Manguel’s own curiosity cabinet of specimens of read- ing culled from literature and history, a capacious room strewn with examples of any and every type of reading expe- rience one could imagine. It is non-nar- rational and defies easy summary. It moves deftly back and forth from Mesopotamia to the present, and con- siders such topics as reading aloud, si- Book Reviews 285 lent reading, hearing reading, reading in bed (highly recommended), reading pictures, the shape of the book, trans- lating as reading, and memory and reading. Within a single chapter, the reader is led from Augustine to Emerson and from medieval jongleurs to workers in Cuban cigar factories in the nineteenth century. Although some may be confused or put off by this “method,” the impact of the book de- rives precisely from Manguel’s ability to juxtapose the disparate and the dif- ferent. Through it all, though, there are at least two themes that connect the tis- sue of examples and episodes that stretches throughout the book. One is Manguel’s devotion to the privacy of reading. For Manguel, the act of read- ing—no matter where or how it is done—is the quintessential private act. Indeed, it is the private nature of read- ing that mocks any attempt to write the history of reading. Reading defines a zone of personal space that no one or no thing can take from us. If we have nothing else, we have at least that space. However, it is not an introverted, alienated privacy that attracts Manguel. Rather, privacy is the precondition for creating, through reading, bonds of com- munity across time and space. Reading becomes an assertion of fellowship and solidarity; readers meet other readers. In a book packed with all manner of illus- trations, one in particular stands out: a two-page spread of a shot of three men in suits, overcoats, and hats silently browsing the shelves of a bombed-out library in London, in 1940. Knee deep in detritus, the gents respectfully go about their business as if nothing would ever deter them. They will persist alone to- gether, readers each and all. The book’s other theme anchors it firmly in the postmodern present: the omnipotence of the reader. The author, remember, is dead. There are only read- ers and texts, and it is readers who con- struct the texts. The author is only an author; the author must die—or least disappear—in order for the text to live. Manguel bestows on the reader an un- bounded freedom to create and re-cre- ate texts at will. In the kingdom of the book, the reader is sovereign. Yet as appealing as this voluntarism is, it surely overlooks the extent to which readers, too, exist in contexts—contexts that constrain and direct their imagina- tions. If we truly are what we read, then the latter in some measure defines the limits of our creative freedom. However one feels about the book, it is hard to come away from it without liking its author. He is warm and invit- ing, and he has a Borgesian sense of playfulness that allows everyone to feel at home in his crazy sandbox. Who could not like someone who asserts a truism that few would dare acknowl- edge: “I judge a book by its cover; I judge a book by its shape. . . .” Right on! But I must confess to finding the cover of Manguel’s book merely interesting rather than compelling. However, do not throw it away. Inside, it contains a “reader ’s timeline” running from 4000 BCE to the present, suitable for display as a handy reference guide. If you want a history of reading from A History of Reading, that is where you will get it.— Michael Ryan, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia The National Electronic Library: A Guide to the Future for Library Managers. Ed. Gary M. Pitkin. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Pr. (The Greenwood Li- brary Management Collection), 1996. 192p. $55. ISBN 0-313-29613-8. Who could not like someone who asserts a truism that few would dare acknowledge: “I judge a book by its cover; I judge a book by its shape.” << /ASCII85EncodePages false /AllowTransparency false /AutoPositionEPSFiles true /AutoRotatePages /All /Binding /Left /CalGrayProfile (Dot Gain 20%) /CalRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) /CalCMYKProfile (U.S. Web Coated \050SWOP\051 v2) /sRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) /CannotEmbedFontPolicy /Warning /CompatibilityLevel 1.3 /CompressObjects /Tags /CompressPages true /ConvertImagesToIndexed true /PassThroughJPEGImages true /CreateJobTicket false /DefaultRenderingIntent /Default /DetectBlends true /DetectCurves 0.0000 /ColorConversionStrategy /CMYK /DoThumbnails false /EmbedAllFonts true /EmbedOpenType false /ParseICCProfilesInComments true /EmbedJobOptions true /DSCReportingLevel 0 /EmitDSCWarnings false /EndPage -1 /ImageMemory 1048576 /LockDistillerParams false /MaxSubsetPct 1 /Optimize true /OPM 1 /ParseDSCComments true /ParseDSCCommentsForDocInfo true /PreserveCopyPage true /PreserveDICMYKValues true /PreserveEPSInfo true /PreserveFlatness false /PreserveHalftoneInfo true /PreserveOPIComments false /PreserveOverprintSettings true /StartPage 1 /SubsetFonts false /TransferFunctionInfo /Apply /UCRandBGInfo /Preserve /UsePrologue false /ColorSettingsFile () /AlwaysEmbed [ true ] /NeverEmbed [ true ] /AntiAliasColorImages false /CropColorImages false /ColorImageMinResolution 151 /ColorImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleColorImages true /ColorImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /ColorImageResolution 300 /ColorImageDepth -1 /ColorImageMinDownsampleDepth 1 /ColorImageDownsampleThreshold 1.10000 /EncodeColorImages true /ColorImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterColorImages true /ColorImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /ColorACSImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /ColorImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /JPEG2000ColorACSImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /JPEG2000ColorImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /AntiAliasGrayImages false /CropGrayImages false /GrayImageMinResolution 151 /GrayImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleGrayImages true /GrayImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /GrayImageResolution 300 /GrayImageDepth -1 /GrayImageMinDownsampleDepth 2 /GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.10000 /EncodeGrayImages true /GrayImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterGrayImages true /GrayImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /GrayACSImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /GrayImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /JPEG2000GrayACSImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /JPEG2000GrayImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /AntiAliasMonoImages false /CropMonoImages false /MonoImageMinResolution 600 /MonoImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleMonoImages true /MonoImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /MonoImageResolution 1200 /MonoImageDepth -1 /MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.16667 /EncodeMonoImages true /MonoImageFilter /CCITTFaxEncode /MonoImageDict << /K -1 >> /AllowPSXObjects false /CheckCompliance [ /None ] /PDFX1aCheck false /PDFX3Check false /PDFXCompliantPDFOnly false /PDFXNoTrimBoxError true /PDFXTrimBoxToMediaBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXSetBleedBoxToMediaBox true /PDFXBleedBoxToTrimBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfile () /PDFXOutputConditionIdentifier () /PDFXOutputCondition () /PDFXRegistryName () /PDFXTrapped /False /CreateJDFFile false /Description << /ENU (IPC Print Services, Inc. Please use these settings with InDesign CS4 \(6.x\). These settings should work well for every type of job; B/W, Color or Spot Color. Contact Pre-press Helpdesk at prepress_helpdesk@ipcprintservices.com if you have questions or need customized settings.) >> /Namespace [ (Adobe) (Common) (1.0) ] /OtherNamespaces [ << /AsReaderSpreads false /CropImagesToFrames true /ErrorControl /WarnAndContinue /FlattenerIgnoreSpreadOverrides false /IncludeGuidesGrids false /IncludeNonPrinting false /IncludeSlug false /Namespace [ (Adobe) (InDesign) (4.0) ] /OmitPlacedBitmaps false /OmitPlacedEPS false /OmitPlacedPDF false /SimulateOverprint /Legacy >> << /AddBleedMarks true /AddColorBars false /AddCropMarks true /AddPageInfo true /AddRegMarks false /BleedOffset [ 9 9 9 9 ] /ConvertColors /ConvertToCMYK /DestinationProfileName (U.S. Web Coated \(SWOP\) v2) /DestinationProfileSelector /DocumentCMYK /Downsample16BitImages true /FlattenerPreset << /ClipComplexRegions true /ConvertStrokesToOutlines true /ConvertTextToOutlines true /GradientResolution 300 /LineArtTextResolution 1200 /PresetName ([High Resolution]) /PresetSelector /HighResolution /RasterVectorBalance 1 >> /FormElements false /GenerateStructure false /IncludeBookmarks false /IncludeHyperlinks false /IncludeInteractive false /IncludeLayers false /IncludeProfiles true /MarksOffset 9 /MarksWeight 0.250000 /MultimediaHandling /UseObjectSettings /Namespace [ (Adobe) (CreativeSuite) (3.0) ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfileSelector /NA /PageMarksFile /RomanDefault /PreserveEditing true /UntaggedCMYKHandling /LeaveUntagged /UntaggedRGBHandling /UseDocumentProfile /UseDocumentBleed false >> << /AllowImageBreaks true /AllowTableBreaks true /ExpandPage false /HonorBaseURL true /HonorRolloverEffect false /IgnoreHTMLPageBreaks false /IncludeHeaderFooter false /MarginOffset [ 0 0 0 0 ] /MetadataAuthor () /MetadataKeywords () /MetadataSubject () /MetadataTitle () /MetricPageSize [ 0 0 ] /MetricUnit /inch /MobileCompatible 0 /Namespace [ (Adobe) (GoLive) (8.0) ] /OpenZoomToHTMLFontSize false /PageOrientation /Portrait /RemoveBackground false /ShrinkContent true /TreatColorsAs /MainMonitorColors /UseEmbeddedProfiles false /UseHTMLTitleAsMetadata true >> ] >> setdistillerparams << /HWResolution [2400 2400] /PageSize [612.000 792.000] >> setpagedevice