Curiosity

by Alberto Manguel Narrated by John McDonough

Overview

Alberto Manguel's The History of Reading was an international bestseller translated into thirty-four languages and for which Manguel earned the MEdicis Prize. Fourteen years later, Manguel anchors his new book in the primal connection between reading and curiosity. Tracing twenty-five centuries of human history, from the fourth century BC to the present day, Manguel dedicates each of his chapters to a single character-ranging from our best-known thinkers, scientists, and artists to seemingly minor figures of whom we know little more than one inspired utterance-in whom he identifies a particular way of asking the question "Why?" Above all, he aims to "awake in readers a consciousness of their own powers of enquiry and imagination, of their right to doubt and contest assumed answers, and of their responsibility in furthering the questions our ancestors were asking far away and long ago." "How wonderfully appropriate that the endlessly inquisitive Alberto Manguel should consider the fascinating concept of curiosity. Fueled by a lifetime of reading, and with Dante as his guide, he embarks on an elegantly conceived excursion of the mind, driven by a single, timeless word-why?"-Nicholas A. Basbanes, author of On Paper and A Gentle Madness "Manguel vaults over the traditional fences of genre, literary history, and discipline with breathtaking virtuosity. He is the Montaigne de nos jours and, as regards this latest effort, if they put another rover on Mars they should call it 'Manguel.'"-John Sutherland, University College London "For Alberto Manguel reading is a pilgrimage, a secular-sacred encounter with mystery, and a way of reinvigorating the dead. Dante and Montaigne and Pinocchio's Collodi are his guides and his intimates in this passionate quest for knowledge, but it is the state of inquiry itself and even doubt that define for him the pleasures of curiosity. With his loving, keenly felt, highly enjoyable delving into writers and their writings, Manguel argues for literature's revelatory illusions, its epiphanies and its testimony."-Marina Warner, Writer, Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights "Alberto Manguel is a wanderer among books, immensely curious in such an intriguing way that he lets his readers easily discover the fruits of his curiosity."-Roberto Calasso "This is a dynamic, lively book that leads the reader to appreciate the pleasures and the power of curiosity. In writing its remarkable history Alberto Manguel sees it both as a primary passion and as a force behind all intellectual experiences. In a sort of encyclopedic narrative Manguel journeys over the most distant places-from Dante's Florence to Rome, Jerusalem, Athens, and Latin America etc. and he invites us to a grand tour of wonders and surprises."-Giuseppe Mazzotta, Yale University "Manguel travels through books in the same way as he travels through various countries. He meets new friends and asks questions of them about himself, and about life. In a style which is all his own, he delights us with the unlimited bounds of human curiosity."-Lina Bolzoni, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa Alberto Manguel is a writer, translator, editor, and critic, but would rather define himself as a reader and a lover of books. He was born in Buenos Aires and spent his childhood in Israel and his adolescence in Argentina. While attending the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, he worked in a bookstore where he met the blind Jorge Luis Borges, and became one of his readers for several years. After living in Europe and the South Pacific, working as an editor, in 1982 he moved to Canada and became a Canadian citizen. There he wrote for the Canadian newspapers, radio, and television, as well as for many other publications around the world. He now lives in a small village in France, surrounded by more than 30,000 volumes.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

01/12/2015
The search for knowledge, and the discontents associated with that search, provide a loose pretext for this rambling literary meditation. Manguel (All Men are Liars) frames his text around The Divine Comedy, his model for a soul-shaking inquiry into the cosmos, examining Dante’s approach to a raft of questions about the nature of language, reasoning, animals, acquisitiveness, good and evil, and much more. Along the way he calls in other writers and philosophers, including Aquinas, Hume, Dickens, and Primo Levi, and visits topics such as economic inequality, environmental devastation, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and language skills among chimpanzees. Manguel’s loose-jointed, free-associative chapters make for a hit-and-miss intellectual tour. At some points, he gets bogged down with ornate self-indulgence, while at others his thoughts focus into sharp, insightful discussions of intriguing themes, such as identity in Alice in Wonderland, the unjust disparagement of the ancient Sophists, and the contrast between the morally coherent punishments in Dante’s hell and the inexplicable torments of Auschwitz. Throughout, Manguel’s main guiding principle seems to be to simply follow his nose to whatever tangentially related topic interests him. The average reader’s curiosity will be piqued by some, though perhaps not all, of the discoveries he makes. Photos. (Mar.)

John Sutherland

"Manguel vaults over the traditional fences of genre, literary history, and discipline with breathtaking virtuosity. He is the Montaigne de nos jours and, as regards this latest effort, if they put another rover on Mars they should call it 'Manguel.'"—John Sutherland, University College London

The Economist

Reading Mr. Manguel is like taking a city walk or an unhurried meal with an erudite, cosmopolitan friend. . . . Few cultures or historical periods are closed to him. He hops knowledgeably and divertingly from topic to topic. Yet he never strays far from his true interest, reading itself.”—The Economist

Giuseppe Mazzotta

"This is a dynamic, lively book that leads the reader to appreciate the pleasures and the power of curiosity. In writing its remarkable history Alberto Manguel sees it both as a primary passion and as a force behind all intellectual experiences.  In a sort of encyclopedic narrative Manguel journeys over the most distant places—from Dante’s Florence to Rome, Jerusalem, Athens, and Latin America, etc.—and he invites us to a grand tour of wonders and surprises."—Giuseppe Mazzotta, Yale University

Lina Bolzoni

"Manguel travels through books in the same way he travels through various countries. He meets new friends and asks questions of them about himself, and about life. In a style which is all his own, he delights us with the unlimited bounds of human curiosity."—Lina Bolzoni, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa

New Statesman - Jonathan Bate

‘Enormously enjoyable about the pleasures of reading… [a book] about how books help us to be thoughtful, feeling human beings.’—Jonathan Bate, New Statesman.
 
 

Open Letters Monthly - Robert Minto

Curiosity is a book about the Talmud and the Mars rover, sophistry and knot-languages, David Hume and reading machines, Zoroaster and Pinocchio — and, periodically, curiosity and Dante. [Manguel] embraces the character of his own thinking — miscellaneous, excursive, fragmentary. . . . Closing the last page of this book, I wondered if perhaps Manguel intended to demonstrate curiosity in the behavior of his prose more than to discuss it. In many ways the book ought to be approached as a charming portrait of the curious man.”—Robert Minto, Open Letters Monthly

The Daily Telegraph - Duncan White

‘Alberto Manguel’s dizzying account of curiosity is a fitting testament to his life as a literary evangelist.’—Duncan White, the Daily Telegraph.
 

Shelf Awareness for Readers - Noah Cruickshank

A profound, insightful look into the human proclivity for questions, through literature.”—Noah Cruickshank, Shelf Awareness for Readers

Literary Review - Frederic Raphael

‘Curiosity is amongst the most interesting parades of humane knowledge, wry speculation and intellectual versatility that any curious person might hope to read… Time and again Manguel retrieves dusty stuff from the out-trays of history and restores them to beguiling currency.’—Frederic Raphael, Literary Review.
 

Nicholas A. Basbanes

"How wonderfully appropriate that the endlessly inquisitive Alberto Manguel should consider the fascinating concept of curiosity. Fueled by a lifetime of reading, and with Dante as his guide, he embarks on an elegantly conceived excursion of the mind, driven by a single, timeless word—why?"—Nicholas A. Basbanes, author of On Paper and A Gentle Madness

New York Review of Books - Robert Pogue Harrison

If there’s anyone alive today who is as widely read and bibliomaniacal as Borges was in his day, it’s the author of Curiosity, the latest in a series of Manguel’s meditations about reading, libraries, and the spectral spaces in the human psyche that literary works occupy.”—Robert Pogue Harrison, New York Review of Books

National Post - Philip Marchand

[Manguel’s] ‘writing with what others have written,’ his insistence on being called a reader rather than a critic or an editor, is a noble stance, and he has been faithful to it. May he and his library long flourish.”—Philip Marchand, National Post

TLS - Marina Gerner

"Alberto Manguel’s book, a song of praise to the art of asking questions and exploring answers, curiously escapes categorisation."—Marina Gerner, TLS
 

Jewish Chronicle - Stoddard Martin

‘Curiosity is a meditation on what is important … it is best taken as if part of a long, fascinating conversation with an individual whose erudition and humanity leave one largely content to listen while nursing one’s own, parallel apprehensions.’ - Stoddard Martin, Jewish Chronicle

Marina Warner

"For Alberto Manguel reading is a pilgrimage, a secular-sacred encounter with mystery, and a way of reinvigorating the dead. Dante and Montaigne and Pinocchio's Collodi are his guides and his intimates in this passionate quest for knowledge, but it is the state of inquiry itself and even doubt that define for him the pleasures of curiosity. With his loving, keenly felt, highly enjoyable delving into writers and their writings, Manguel argues for literature’s revelatory illusions, its epiphanies and its testimony."—Marina Warner, author of Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights

National Post - Robert Fulford

Certain books are so absorbing, and so wide-ranging, that even the index at the back becomes entertaining. Curiosity (Yale University Press), a new work by Alberto Manguel, falls in that category.”—Robert Fulford, National Post

Roberto Calasso

"Alberto Manguel is a wanderer among books, immensely curious in such an intriguing way that he lets his readers easily discover the fruits of his curiosity."—Roberto Calasso

Psychology Today - Glenn Altschuler

Elegant and erudite, his book is a celebration of critical reading—a challenging, enjoyable and essential craft that is in danger these days of becoming a lost art.”—Glenn Altschuler, Psychology Today

Toronto Globe & Mail - Iain Reid

An eloquent blend of philosophical review, literary audit and memoir. . . . There are plenty of intriguing images and illustrations embedded within the text that help to place us in an earlier time, but a reader’s experience with language can also be constructively reset with the help of Manguel. . . . Reading Manguel’s book is a pleasing reminder that time, as much as anything, changes our relationship with art, ideas, but also with language itself.”—Iain Reid, Toronto Globe & Mail

Library Journal

03/01/2015
Four hundred years ago, French essayist Michel de Montaigne asked himself, "What do I know?" According to Manguel (A History of Reading), this question functions not to conduct us toward definitive answers but rather to stimulate us to explore ourselves and our surroundings, opening up vast horizons of doubt and potential. Hewing to this principle of exploration, Manguel's work contains 17 erudite meditations on humanity's great existential questions, framed within Dante's journey through hell in the classic Inferno. Each chapter takes the form of a question: What Is True? Who Am I? What Comes Next? The chapter then pursues each inquiry through the writings of Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Dante, the secret authors of the Talmud, and the occasional modern thinker. Manguel does not attempt to provide a biography of the theory or science of curiosity. Like Umberto Eco and other classical intellectuals, he produces a meandering flow of stories and musings, both personal and literary, that contrasts favorably with the methodical, linear narratives that audiences and peers expect from mainstream scholars. VERDICT Manguel's meditations will appeal to a niche readership of the intellectually curious as well as lovers of the classics.—Michael Rodriguez, Hodges Univ. Lib., Naples, FL

Kirkus Reviews

2015-01-04
An erudite analysis and exploration of curiosity through the author's own works and those of countless others.Manguel (A Reader on Reading, 2010, etc.), an Argentina-born Canadian essayist, translator, critic and editor, tackles a variety of difficult questions: Who am I? What is language? Where is our place? How are we different? Why do things happen? What can we possess? What comes next? In each of his 17 chapters, the author focuses on a different question posed by a curious mind, and each begins with a brief and sometimes-poignant anecdote from the author's youth. Chief among the curious minds that fascinate Manguel is that of Dante, whose quest in The Divine Comedy is spiritual and who serves here as the author's constant companion. It is worth noting that one of the book's charms is the presence of numerous unusual illustrations, including many woodcuts from a 15th-century edition of Dante's work. Among the fictional or mythical characters that readers meet on this journey through the history of mankind are Eve, Pandora, Ulysses and Ebenezer Scrooge, as well as a host of real scholars, religious figures, authors, poets, artists, philosophers and even economists. Human beings are, Manguel notes, self-conscious animals, capable of experiencing the world by asking questions and putting our curiosity into words, then turning those words into stories that lead to further questions. A fair sample can be found here. The author's personal library is said to contain more than 30,000 volumes, and the wealth of references in this book demonstrates that he is indeed a voracious reader. For casual readers, the brief personal passages may provide welcome pauses in what is a highly literate and demanding text perhaps best appreciated by followers of Manguel's previous works.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170730414
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	05/15/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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