- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: Yale University Press (15 April 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0300139144
- ISBN-13: 978-0300139143
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 14.2 x 3.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 371,394 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"I dream of Manguel's library...he includes lists of lost canons and books never written... Dreamy." -- Vera Rule, Guardian, 16th May 2009
The Observer, 27th April 2008
'Books jump out of their jackets when Manguel opens them... [He is] a master of bibliographical revels.'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The Library At Night is perfect reading for those who enjoy "books about books", or books about the pleasure of reading. After his excellent A History of Reading, Alberto Manguel has now presented us with what is effectively a history of libraries in The Library At Night and the effect is equally as satisfying.
Perhaps "history" is not quite the right word, for in his 15 chapters, Manguel writes of not only the history of libraries, but also the impact and meaning of libraries through the centuries.
Everything is covered here, from the history of the great library of Alexandria to the development of the most modern libraries such as the British Library or the library of the Freie Universität Berlin. The book considers location, cataloguing systems, themes, and great librarians (Gottfreid Leibnitz of Hanover, Andrew Carnegie who created over 2500 libraries, Aby Warburg of Hamburg and many others). But the book is far more than history, containing many digressions on the nature of literature itself, and the process of reading.
At times the book has an almost magical or mystical feel to it. Manguel has created a library of his own in the Loire Valley, and indeed the title of the book, The Library at Night is derived from his feeling that,
". . .at night the atmosphere changes. Sounds become muffled, thoughts become louder . . . time seems closer to that moment halfway between wakefulness and sleep . . . the books become the real presence and it is I, their reader, who, through cabbalistic rituals of half-glimpsed letters, am summoned up and lured to a certain volume and a certain page".
It is these almost whimsical passages which give the book its charm, for after all, libraries are not merely collections of physical objects, but have atmosphere, cultures, accumulated historical usages which have almost sunk deep into the walls and shelves creating an experience unique to each one.
In the chapter "The Library as Shadow", Manguel covers book-burning and the destruction of libraries. Many times through history, libraries have been destroyed, or at very least whole categories of books have been sent for destruction. Caliph Omar, who issued the order to destroy the Library of Alexandria, had a typical attitude of the fundamentalist,
"If the content of these books agree with the Holy Book, then they are redundant. If they disagree, then they are undesirable. In either case they should be consigned to the flames".
I did not realise that Europeans Catholic leaders destroyed the great libraries of Mexico and Central America, eliminating the histories of the Mayan and Aztec civilisations so that they are forever lost to us. Similarly, in the 16th century, the Ottomans destroyed the Great Corvina Library, said to be one of the jewels of the Hungarian crown. Manguel raises the issue of the American Patriot Law which allows federal agents to obtain records of books borrowed from public libraries, which has caused some libraries to reconsider their acquistion policies. Libraries can be subversive and dangerous to a wide range of governments.
I enjoyed this book greatly. It is beautifully produced by Yale University Press and is richly illustrated with photographs and other drawings. I cannot think how a book on libraries could be more comprehensive, and yet totally readable, and I would recommend it to any lover of books and respecter of the concept of libraries, whether private or public.
Perhaps "history" is not quite the right word, for in his 15 chapters, Manguel writes of not only the history of libraries, but also the impact and meaning of libraries through the centuries.
Everything is covered here, from the history of the great library of Alexandria to the development of the most modern libraries such as the British Library or the library of the Freie Universität Berlin. The book considers location, cataloguing systems, themes, and great librarians (Gottfreid Leibnitz of Hanover, Andrew Carnegie who created over 2500 libraries, Aby Warburg of Hamburg and many others). But the book is far more than history, containing many digressions on the nature of literature itself, and the process of reading.
At times the book has an almost magical or mystical feel to it. Manguel has created a library of his own in the Loire Valley, and indeed the title of the book, The Library at Night is derived from his feeling that,
". . .at night the atmosphere changes. Sounds become muffled, thoughts become louder . . . time seems closer to that moment halfway between wakefulness and sleep . . . the books become the real presence and it is I, their reader, who, through cabbalistic rituals of half-glimpsed letters, am summoned up and lured to a certain volume and a certain page".
It is these almost whimsical passages which give the book its charm, for after all, libraries are not merely collections of physical objects, but have atmosphere, cultures, accumulated historical usages which have almost sunk deep into the walls and shelves creating an experience unique to each one.
In the chapter "The Library as Shadow", Manguel covers book-burning and the destruction of libraries. Many times through history, libraries have been destroyed, or at very least whole categories of books have been sent for destruction. Caliph Omar, who issued the order to destroy the Library of Alexandria, had a typical attitude of the fundamentalist,
"If the content of these books agree with the Holy Book, then they are redundant. If they disagree, then they are undesirable. In either case they should be consigned to the flames".
I did not realise that Europeans Catholic leaders destroyed the great libraries of Mexico and Central America, eliminating the histories of the Mayan and Aztec civilisations so that they are forever lost to us. Similarly, in the 16th century, the Ottomans destroyed the Great Corvina Library, said to be one of the jewels of the Hungarian crown. Manguel raises the issue of the American Patriot Law which allows federal agents to obtain records of books borrowed from public libraries, which has caused some libraries to reconsider their acquistion policies. Libraries can be subversive and dangerous to a wide range of governments.
I enjoyed this book greatly. It is beautifully produced by Yale University Press and is richly illustrated with photographs and other drawings. I cannot think how a book on libraries could be more comprehensive, and yet totally readable, and I would recommend it to any lover of books and respecter of the concept of libraries, whether private or public.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you really love books and are buried in books (like I am here at home) this book will make you envious at the author's superbly housed library. He takes you on a labyrinthine tour of some wonderful and obscure tomes that he has collected and cherished over the years. His enthusiasm for reading is infectious and it's good to hear someone give voice to the pure sensuousness that can be got from a decent book. Yes, we probably are a dying breed. You can stuff your Kindles. Whoops, sorry Amazon!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Manguel has written a book whose writing and 'bookness' reflect the baroque sophistication and maturity of the medium. If writing style is one example of Heideggerian 'being in the world', Manguel models what it is to be fully alive both in history and in the present, firing on all synapses and infatuated with the physicality of 'the book'. As the web takes over the ethereality of 'content', the materiality of 'the book' (the smell of the ink, the crisp dryness of the paper, its resistance to our fingers as we turn the page, the abstraction of the shapes of the typographer's choice of type) becomes more exciting and primal. Manguel understands this and revels in it. The breadth of his cultural references could hardly be wider but is never pretentious. He carries his erudition and self-consciousness lightly so we don't feel intimidated or belittled by him. His position on the world wide web is one of the most best I have ever read: 'If the Library of Alexandria was the emblem of our ambition of omniscience, the Web is the emblem of our ambition of omnipresence; the library that contained everything has become the library that contains anything. Alexandria modestly saw itself as the centre of a circle bound by the knowable world; the Web, like the definition of God first imagined in the twelfth century, sees itself as a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere' (p. 322). Manguel (like anyone who buys their books through it, or writes/reads book reviews on it!) is not 'against' the Web - he simply has reservations about it (in comparison with physical books or 'codexes') and suggests that it is helping create a way of thinking and social organization that is perhaps (by comparison) not as good. Clearly this view or this book is not for the many, but he is not a snob or an elitist. Let those from any culture - the breadth of his examples is dazzling - simply buy, read and enjoy this book.
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