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...

"Curiosity has been seen through the ages as the impulse that drives our knowledge forward and the temptation that leads us toward dangerous and forbidden waters. The question "Why?" has appeared under a multiplicity of guises and in vastly different contexts throughout the chapters of human history. Why does evil exist? What is beauty? How does language inform us? What defines our identity? What is our responsibility to the world? In this book, Alberto...

"No one knows whether Homer ever existed, but there is no doubt that the poems assembled under his name are foundations of Western literature. The Iliad and Odyssey--with their tales of the Trojan War, Achilles, Odysseus, and Penelope, the Cyclops, and the beautiful Helen of Troy and the petulant gods--have inspired us for over two and a half millennia and influenced writers from Plato to Virgil, Pope to Joyce, and Dante to Margaret Atwood. In this...

The novel's central character, Augusto, is a pampered, aimless young man who falls in love with Eugenia, a woman he randomly spots on the street. Augusto's absurd infatuation offers an irresistible target for the philosophical ruminations of Unamuno's characters, including Eugenia's guardian aunt and "theoretical anarchist" uncle, Augusto's comical servants, and his best friend, Victor, an aspiring writer who introduces him to a new, groundbreaking...