A Reader on Reading

Contents

Preface

I. WHO AM I?

A Reader in the Looking-Glass Wood

Room for the Shadow

On Being Jewish

Meanwhile, in Another Part of the Forest

The Further off from England

Homage to Proteus

II. THE LESSON OF THE MASTER

Borges in Love

Borges and the Longed-For Jew

Faking It

III. MEMORANDA

The Death of Che Guevara

The Blind Bookkeeper

The Perseverance of Truth

AIDS and the Poet

IV. WORDPLAY

The Full Stop

In Praise of Words

A Brief History of the Page

The Voice That Says “I”

Final Answers

What Song the Sirens Sang

V. THE IDEAL READER

Notes Towards a Definition of the Ideal Reader

How Pinocchio Learned to Read

Candide in Sanssouci

The Gates of Paradise

Time and the Doleful Knight

Saint Augustine’s Computer

VI. BOOKS AS BUSINESS

Reading White for Black

The Secret Sharer

Honoring Enoch Soames

Jonah and the Whale

The Legend of the Dodos

VII. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

In Memoriam

God’s Spies

Once Again, Troy

Art and Blasphemy

At the Mad Hatter’s Table

VIII. THE NUMINOUS LIBRARY

Notes Towards a Definition of the Ideal Library

The Library of the Wandering Jew

The Library as Home

The End of Reading

Sources

Index