At one magical instant in your early childhood, thepage of a bookthat string of confused, alien ciphersshivered into meaning, and at that moment,whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, areader. Noted essayist and editor Alberto Manguelmoves from this essential moment to explore thesix-thousand-year-old conversation between wordsand that hero without whom the book would be alifeless object: the reader. Manguel brilliantly coversreading as seduction, as rebellion, and as obsessionand goes on to trace the quirky and fascinatinghistory of the readers progress from clay tablet toscroll, codex to CD-ROM.