Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne WolfMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Wolf does an excellent job at making a very scholarly, technical treatise (graphemes, morphemes, idiograms, etc.) engaging and enlightening. Overall, this is a deep dive into the details of reading as a neurobiological feat explored to its expression unique often culturally (such as Chinese versus English) and in its breakdown, such as in dyslexia. The survey of the science is very good and educational, but I cannot agree with a sort of moral about the triumph of digital media over books. The author points out that Socrates feared the rise of books as some sort of support for digital communication dumbing down humans without confronting an apparent hypocrisy: Might our fear of a digital rise be as short-sighted as Scorates' fear of the rise of writring?
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