Manguel II

Having been impressed with The Library at Night (see January 10 and nearby posts on this blog), my visit to the in-laws brightened when I found this book on the shelf -- an earlier collection (1996) of Alberto Manguel's thoughts on books and reading. It's hard to summarize, or even categorize, a book like this. Where does it go on the shelf? With history? Autobiography? Literature? Cultural commentary? Essays?

I don't know other than to say that it doesn't belong in any of those places; it belongs in the reader's hand, preferably late at night after the children have gone to bed and there's nowhere to be early the next morning. Or a rainy afternoon following a morning spent working in the yard. Or, in a pinch, on a long airplane trip. Any place where the reader can lose himself in Manguel's prose about, well, prose and its consumption.

Books like this are hard to find, and to be cherished when they are. I'll give a few memorable excerpts in coming days. Only one question remains: Do I have to give it back to my mother in law?