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Into the Looking-Glass Wood: Essays on Books, Reading, and the World
 
 
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Into the Looking-Glass Wood: Essays on Books, Reading, and the World [Paperback]

Alberto Manguel (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)


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Book Description

July 10, 2000 Harvest Original
Alberto Manguel has enchanted hundreds of thousands of readers with his bestselling books, including The Dictionary of Imaginary Places. Now he has assembled a personal collection of his own essays that will enchant anyone interested in reading, writing, or the world. Through personal stories and literary reflections, in a style rich in humor and gentle scholarship, Manguel leads his readers to reflect on the links that bind the physical world to our language that describes it. The span of his attention in these twenty-three essays is enthralling: from "Who Am I?," in which he recounts the first adventures of childhood reading, to "Borges in Love," a memoir of the great blind writer's passions; from his first encounters with the evils of prejudice to a meditation on the death of Che Guevara; from a tour of his library to evocations of such of his favorite writers as Cortázar and Chesterton. A voyage deep into the subversive heart of words, Into the Looking-Glass Wood is fired by the author's humanity, insatiable curiosity, and steadfast belief in the essential power, mystery, and delight of the written word.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An homage to Alice in Wonderland sets the tone for this smooth but predictable collection of miscellaneous pieces on literature and politics. In referencing Lewis Carroll's arch logicAand later Borges's labyrinthine conundrumsAcritic and professional bibliophile Manguel (A History of Reading) indulges his penchant for thinly spun theorizing on the relationship between reader and text, the power of words and naming and the hallowed status of literature and its practitioners. Manguel praises Cynthia Ozick, G.K. Chesterton and Canadian poet Richard Outram in a series of review-based essays, and elevates the entire put-upon class of writers in an extended tongue-in-cheek retelling of the Old Testament Book of Jonah. Two pieces on the genre of gay literature take up familiar debates of inclusion and exclusion; another piece raises interesting questions about "imaginary" or "armchair" Jews who take unearned pride in their heritage (but fails to answer them adequately). Born and raised in Argentina, ManguelAwho currently resides in CanadaAis at his sharpest and most original in his Argentine-themed essays: a piece on Borges's amorous adventures draws on Manguel's schoolboy memories of reading aloud to the blind writer; "In Memoriam" poignantly describes the fate of one of Manguel's first mentors, Marta Lynch, a popular Argentinean writer, in the aftermath of the 1966 military coup; and in "God's Spies," Manguel decries Mario Vargas Llosa's call for amnesty for Argentinean war criminals. When Manguel isn't waxing too lyrical, he is an able storyteller. In the end, however, the reader is liable to concur with Cynthia Ozick, as quoted by Manguel: "Fiction is all discovery.... Essays know too much." (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This collection of 23 personal stories and literary reflections celebrates writing, books, and the world. Self-confessed bibliophile and prolific author Manguel (A History of Reading; The Dictionary of Imaginary Places) explores the connections that bind the physical world to the language that describes it. Manguel includes essays on such diverse subjects as "Borges in Love," a memoir of the great Argentine writer; the author's encounters with prejudice; politics in Argentina; and the revolutionary Che Guevara. Particularly interesting are his insights into Argentina's political history, recounted in "God's Spies." Here he points out how the writing of horrific acts shows them to be conquerable and demystifies them. In another essay, he tells of his first experiences with reading and the profound influence books have had on his life. Manguel's intricate knowledge of books shines through as do his humor and scholarship. Recommended for public and academic libraries.DNancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Mariner Books; First Edition edition (July 10, 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0156012650
  • ISBN-13: 978-0156012652
  • Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,614,490 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Internationally acclaimed as an anthologist, translator, essayist, novelist, and editor, Alberto Manguel is the bestselling author of several award-winning books, including A Dictionary of Imaginary Places and A History of Reading. He was born in Buenos Aires, moved to Canada in 1982 and now lives in France, where he was named a Chevalier de l'Ordre français des Arts et des Lettres.

 

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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Witty, thoughtful insights, August 21, 2000
This review is from: Into the Looking-Glass Wood: Essays on Books, Reading, and the World (Paperback)
Manguel is best-known for his previous book of essays A HISTORY OF READING. Now, some people like that book and some people don't, and I suspect the lines of polarization will fall the same way on this book. Like A HISTORY, it's a collection of essays, but there is no unified theme to the pieces (other than the fact that Carroll's ALICE stories are used as epigrams for each section). Almost all literature-oriented, of course. I'm not generous with mediocre work, but this is not mediocre; merely rendered with a light touch. If you enjoy entertaining but thoughtful essays, you'll like this. However, if entertainment doesn't belong in the essay for you, you may be looking at the wrong book.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
FOR ME, WORDS ON A PAGE give the world coherence. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
gay literature, erotic literature
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Vargas Llosa, Buenos Aires, Looking-Glass Wood, New York, Cynthia Ozick, Father Brown, Middle Ages, American Psycho, Latin America, Oscar Wilde, North America, The Time of the Hero, Estela Canto, French Revolution, The Blind Photographer, Alice's Adventures, Cary Grant, Cuban Revolution, Disappeared People, Don Quixote, Graham Greene, Henry James, Marta Lynch, Thomas Wolfe, United States
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