A Brief History of the Page

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Preface ix
4. Part I. Who Am I?
5. A Reader in the Looking-Glass Wood 3
6. Room for the Shadow 11
7. On Being Jewish 22
8. Meanwhile, in Another Part of the Forest 26
9. The Further off From England 37
10. Homage to Proteus 42
11. Part II. The Lesson of the Master
12. Borges in Love 47
13. Borges and the Longed-For Jew 62
14. Faking It 66
15. Part III. Memoranda
16. The Death of Che Guevara 79
17. The Blind Bookkeeper 86
18. The Perseverance of Truth 95
19. Aids and the Poet 104
20. Part IV. Wordplay
21. The Full Stop 115
22. In Praise of Words 117
23. A Brief History of the Page 120
24. The Voice That Says “I” 128
25. Final Answers 137
26. What Song the Sirens Sang 141
27. Part V. The Ideal Reader
28. Notes Towards a Definition of the Ideal Reader 151
29. How Pinocchio Learned to Read 155
30. Candide in Sanssouci 164
31. The Gates of Paradise 172
32. Time and the Doleful Knight 182
33. Saint Augustine’s Computer 187
34. Part VI. Books as Business
35. Reading White for Black 201
36. The Secret Sharer 207
37. Honoring Enoch Soames 214
38. Jonah and the Whale 218
39. The Legend of the Dodos 227
40. Part VII. Crime and Punishment
41. In Memoriam 231
42. God’s Spies 237
43. Once Again, Troy 248
44. Art and Blasphemy 251
45. At the Mad Hatter’s Table 254
46. Part VIII. The Numinous Library
47. Notes Towards a Definition of the Ideal Library 267
48. The Library of the Wandering Jew 270
49. The Library as Home 278
50. The End of Reading 282
51. Sources 293
52. Index 297