Alberto Manguel

"A best-selling author and world-renowned bibliophile meditates on his vast personal library and champions the vital role of all libraries. In June 2015 Alberto Manguel prepared to leave his centuries-old village home in France's Loire Valley and reestablish himself in a one-bedroom apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Packing up his enormous, 35,000-volume personal library, choosing which books to keep, store, or cast out, Manguel found himself...

Rich with literary awards and honours, Alberto Manguel extends his literary genius to address and complete a thoughtfully crafted extrapolation on a paper left unfinished by Northrop Frye in 1943. The result is a succinct yet densely multilayered examination of how various readings of Homer throughout the annals of history cast light upon the human tendency towards war rather than peace and asks what roles writing and reading play to bring the world...

Fourteen years later, Manguel anchors his new book in the primal connection between reading and curiosity. Tracing twenty-five centuries of human history, from the fourth century BC to the present day, Manguel dedicates each of his chapters to a single character-ranging from our best-known thinkers, scientists, and artists to seemingly minor figures of whom we know little more than one inspired utterance-in whom he identifies a particular way of asking...

Schiff's photographs capture the shifting architectural styles and missions of the library, from the very earliest American libraries to the modernist masterpieces of Louis I. Kahn and others. The sweeping 360-degree panoramas help the viewer maintain the original vision of the architects. In the introductory essay, Manguel considers the story of the library in America, its evolving architecture and cultural role, and how the American model reflects...