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theciz's review against another edition
challenging
informative
medium-paced
3.25
First, a pet peeve - the title is a stretch and neither Proust nor a squid have much of anything to do with the subject. This kind of "quirky" title irritates me a bit.
What the book is about is reading - how different writing systems were invented in ancient times, how reading is acquired in children, and how dyslexia complicates the process. All three areas were of interest to me, albeit the level of detail sometimes went over my head - I got the gist of it, but it didn’t inthrall me.
I was particularly interested in the reading acquisition part, as I don’t remember when/how I learned to read and neither do my parents. From what this book says, I would guess I taught myself from a good base of being read to often as a child and being encouraged to read by frequent trips to the library (and my obsessive love for Sesame Street!).
There are two quibbles though - Wolf’s insistence that all dyslexics are latent creative geniuses, and her luddism about technology (of the "those damn kids and their screens" variety). I think it’s fine to challenge the idea that people with dyslexia are stupid, but I think it’s more likely that it just means they aren’t barred from greatness in other areas, not that one necessarily follows on from the other.
Another thing to note is that this book is now almost twenty years old - who knows what new discoveries might have been made, and what might have been disproven. I seem to recall reading that a lot of left brain/right brain differences have been exaggerated, and it comes up a lot in the book - ultimately, I don’t know enough about it to make a judgement. I definitely think I should try to follow it up with a newer book on the subject.
What the book is about is reading - how different writing systems were invented in ancient times, how reading is acquired in children, and how dyslexia complicates the process. All three areas were of interest to me, albeit the level of detail sometimes went over my head - I got the gist of it, but it didn’t inthrall me.
I was particularly interested in the reading acquisition part, as I don’t remember when/how I learned to read and neither do my parents. From what this book says, I would guess I taught myself from a good base of being read to often as a child and being encouraged to read by frequent trips to the library (and my obsessive love for Sesame Street!).
There are two quibbles though - Wolf’s insistence that all dyslexics are latent creative geniuses, and her luddism about technology (of the "those damn kids and their screens" variety). I think it’s fine to challenge the idea that people with dyslexia are stupid, but I think it’s more likely that it just means they aren’t barred from greatness in other areas, not that one necessarily follows on from the other.
Another thing to note is that this book is now almost twenty years old - who knows what new discoveries might have been made, and what might have been disproven. I seem to recall reading that a lot of left brain/right brain differences have been exaggerated, and it comes up a lot in the book - ultimately, I don’t know enough about it to make a judgement. I definitely think I should try to follow it up with a newer book on the subject.
kimball_hansen's review against another edition
2.0
Ehhhh this one was boring and I didn't get a whole lot from it.
It's about reading and stuff.
Notes:
Knowing how something originated is the clue that determines how it work.
Speaking is a trait we're born with. But reading isn't. The brain was never meant to read.
Compared to our grandparents or the Greeks, students today don't memorize anything with just the average of 1 to 3 poems.
In Austria they don't learn letters until the first grade.
A child should begin to read at age 5 or later. It can be counter productive to teach them before this age, of course there are exceptions. I find this study odd.
Jana, she called us gentle readers at the end like you do.
It's about reading and stuff.
Notes:
Knowing how something originated is the clue that determines how it work.
Speaking is a trait we're born with. But reading isn't. The brain was never meant to read.
Compared to our grandparents or the Greeks, students today don't memorize anything with just the average of 1 to 3 poems.
In Austria they don't learn letters until the first grade.
A child should begin to read at age 5 or later. It can be counter productive to teach them before this age, of course there are exceptions. I find this study odd.
Jana, she called us gentle readers at the end like you do.
nekreader's review against another edition
4.0
Wolf's book seems to straddle a line between a highly technical scientific look at a history of reading and the neurological processes that allow for (or inhibit) the development of this currently critical skill. The brain science bits are a bit technical for the lay reader, but not technical enough, I suspect for the real scientist. Nevertheless, there are many tidbits here that are interesting and worthwhile enough to make this a compelling read for the average person. I enjoyed the beginning where the author lays out the evolution of written language. Some of the details about how dyslexia manifests differently across languages were fascinating. Some of the deeper questions about the importance of reading to knowledge development and the transition from reading books to digital content online were thought provoking. This is a relatively quick read if you don't let yourself get bogged down in the details pertaining to the brain, unless brain science is your thing, in which case I suspect this is a bit neurology-light.