More “academic” than expected. I enjoyed a good 60% of it. I didn’t arrive at this book with a particular interest in the biological science of the brain function—my interest lies more in the developmental stages, building blocks, memory, recall, nuts and bolts of reading. As a kid who struggled to read at a young age I was also intrigued by the dyslexia background.

Important to note that I am a lay-reader...I'm not a scientist. I have no background in any of the fields represented in this book. I am a parent of a child with dyslexia and I also have an interest in learning about the brain and linguistics. I loved this. I really enjoyed learning about how humans invented reading/writing around the world and how that has shaped the brain. Unfortunately, Part III, about dyslexia, was too technical for me. I found it helpful, but not as much as I'd hoped. This book is great for any parent, adults with dyslexia, and especially teachers.

I alternated eye-reading and ear-reading this one. I loved the audiobook reader's voice (Kirsten Potter). Highly recommend the audio version.

3.5/5

This is not the kind of book that its chosen hook of a title promised it would be, something that I imagine ticked off folks who don't tend towards science in their reading. It's also not the kind of book that's fully equipped enough to make the sorts of pronouncements about inclusive education, mass inculcation of critical thinking, or digital vs. print that it increasingly waves around like a banner the nearer one gets to the end. In terms of what kind of book it is, there's a chunk of the history of reading worth following, a delving into the intracranial regions that light up during the process of reading in a variety of ways in a variety of languages, and an admirably holistic and humane treatment of the wide spread of variations on the theme of reading commonly encompassed by the term 'dyslexia'. Coming at it from the year 2023 as a librarian whose career path involves valuing eBooks alongside audiobooks alongside ye olde conventional text, I imagine Wolf would be rather thrilled that the worries of Socrates could be mollified without completely 'succumbing' to the digital or giving up her precious paperbacks. The fact of the matter is, though, that reading became the Occidental mainstay it is today in no small part due to how useful it proved to be for spitting out acquiescent factory workers and toeing-the-line white collars from the early 20th century onward, and to raise it on high without acknowledging its use in WASP capitalism will only get one so far in the pursuit of true inclusiveness. All in all, I'm glad to finally have gotten this off of my TBR. I just wish I could have done without the awkwardly pointless name drops, especially of the titular variety.

I was a voracious reader as a child and still tend to be, AND I'm interested in linguistic history and brain science, so this had a lot of attraction for me! The main topics are 1) the history of written language 2) The brain science and theory behind how children learn to read and 3) Dyslexia and other problems that occur during the acquisition of reading skills. Well-researched but easy to read for the lay reader.

LOVED this book. Loved it. I (obviously) love to read, so hearing the science and history of language evolution and learning to read, was just fascinating to me. She also focused a fair bit on dyslexia (one of her sons is dyslexic) which was enlightening as to how the brain compensates and works differently than a "reading" brain. There was much discussion on the effects of reading/being read to/being around conversations on children and whether some people are born to be readers or if it is a more learned trait.

It was also interesting to learn that Socrates was so opposed to written language, as he thought it would lose something in translation. Interestingly, the author shares some his fears with the proliferation of the internet and digital media - does it make us less involved with what we read? Will our language begin to deteriorate with the advent of texting/email vernacular?

A great read - I highly recommend!