Infinity in a reed

By: Irene Vallejo

Published by: Siruela

ISBN: 9788417860790

Hardcover. 472 pages. 23 x 15 cm

Language: Spanish

This is a book about the history of books. A journey through the life of this fascinating artefact that we invented so that words could travel through space and time. The history of their manufacture, of all the types we have tried over almost thirty centuries: books of smoke, of stone, of clay, of reeds, of silk, of leather, of trees and, the latest arrivals, of plastic and light.

But, above all, this is a fabulous collective adventure starring thousands of people who, over time, have made books possible and protected them: oral storytellers, scribes, illuminators, translators, peddlers, teachers, sages, spies, rebels, nuns, slaves, adventurers... Readers in mountain landscapes and by the roaring sea, in the capitals where energy is concentrated and in the most remote enclaves where knowledge takes refuge in times of chaos. Ordinary people whose names are often not recorded in history, those saviours of books who are the true protagonists of this essay.