When and where did letters first appear? What is the sweetness of reading? Who taught camels to walk in alphabetical order? Is it true that people were executed for their love of reading? Is reading a passion or a recreation? The author embraces reading as seduction, as rebellion, as obsession, and traces the previously untold story of how we moved from clay tablet to scroll to codex and, ultimately, to hypertext. An endlessly entertaining, gripping exploration of what it means to be a reader, to understand ourselves through what we read. Alberto Mangel (b. 1948) is a famous Canadian cultural critic, writer, and director of the National Library of Argentina. Among the characters in his fascinating book are writers and philosophers, saints and mere mortals - lovers of reading and books.