I never talked to anyone about my reading; the need to share came afterwords. - Alberto Manguel

Nothing moves except my eyes and my hand occasionally turning a page, and yet something not exactly defined by the word "text" unfurls, progresses, grows and takes root as I read. But how does this process take place?

In every literate society, learning to read is something of an initiation, a ritualized passage out of a state of dependency and rudimentary communication.

Most readers, then and now, have at some time experienced the humiliation of being told that their occupation is reprehensible.