Title: A reading diary /
Authors: Manguel, Alberto
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
Year: 2004
Subjects: Manguel, Alberto Diaries.; Manguel, Alberto Books and reading.
Abstract: "While traveling in Canada, Alberto Manguel was struck by how the novel he was reading (Goethe's Elective Affinities) seemed to mirror the social chaos of the world he was living in. An article in the daily paper would be suddenly illuminated by a passage in the novel; a long meditation would be prompted by a single word. He decided to keep a record of these moments, rereading a book a month and forming A Reading Diary: a volume of notes, reflections, and impressions of travel, of friends, of events public and private, all elicited by his reading." "From Don Quixote (August) to The Island of Dr. Moreau (February) to Kim (April), Manguel leads us on an enthralling adventure in literature and life, and demonstrates how, for the passionate reader, one is utterly inextricable from the other."--Jacket.
Contents: June: 'The invention of Morel' / Carares, Adolfo Bioy -- July: 'The Island of Dr. Moreau' / Wells, H.G. -- August: 'Kim" / Kipling, Rudyard -- September: 'Memoirs from beyond the grave' / Chateaubriand, Francois-Rene de -- October: 'The sign of four' / Doyle, Arthur Conan -- November: 'Elective affinities' / Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von -- December: 'The wind in the willows' / Grahame, Kenneth -- January: 'Don Quixote' / Cervantes, Miguel de -- February: 'The tartar steppe / Buzzati, Dino -- March: 'The pillow book' / Shonagon, Sei -- April: 'Surfacing' / Atwood, Margaret -- May: 'The posthumous memoirs of Bras Cubas/ de Assis, Joaquim Maria Machado.