There is, in the experience of reading, a sense of happiness and freedom that is addictive. Reading liberates. It extends towards the reading of life, of who and where we are. It encourages reader-to-reader's conversations. The active readers are its means of contagion: parents, teachers, friends, writers, translators, critics, editors, typographers, booksellers, librarians and other promoters of the addiction of reading. Gabriel Zaid is able to observe the letters' world from a perspective granted by other disciplines. His great success relays on the poet's virtue: to express what we had only obscurely sensed without being able to put it into words. He points out that the true problem with books is that the privileged, college educated stratum doesn't read: it has never really savored reading, never experienced what the act of reading truly means. As far as we know, nobody had said it before. Hay en la experiencia de leer una felicidad y libertad que resultan adictivas. La lectura libera. Se extiende a leer la vida, a leer quienes somos y en donde estamos. Anima las conversaciones de lector a lector. Se contagia por los lectores en accion: padres, maestros, amigos, escritores, traductores, criticos, editores, tipografos, libreros, bibliotecarios y otros promotores del vicio de leer. Gabriel Zaid es capaz de observar el mundo de las letras desde la perspectiva otorgada por otras disciplinas. Su gran acierto es la virtud del poeta: decir lo que oscuramente habiamos intuido sin alcanzar a formularlo en palabras. Senala que el verdadero problema del libro es que el estrato privilegiado que ha hecho estudios universitarios no lee: nunca le ha dado el golpe a la lectura, nunca ha llegado a saber realmente lo que es leer. Esto, que sepamos, nadie lo habia dicho.
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Funny, informative and alarming, if somewhat outdated. Zaid effectively describes the book market, challenging our preconceptions and (despite a bleak picture) giving us hope about the future of bookshops.
