The City of Words (The CBC Massey Lectures)

Although the lectures were given in 2009, the lessons of social intolerance and civic nationalism are even more applicable to our personal and political realities today. It is a reminder to me to diverge from reading about the current political madness in our world and "look at what visionaries, poets, novelists, essayists, and filmmakers have to say about building societies." Tim 09/2018

Thus far, every effort by Mr. Manguel I've read has proven interesting, well-written, provocative, insightful, and well worth the investment of time to do so. I highly recommend Mr. Manguel's work and encourage those who're curious about it, to delve and discover.

I am reading this book for the second time: there was too much for me to consider and integrate on one reading. Alberto Manguel looks at the rise of violent intolerance in our societies. As part of this, he invites the reader to look at what is written (by visionaries, poets, novelists and essayists) and presented visually (by filmmakers) about the building of societies.Under the following chapter headings, we are invited to think about the future by drawing on the past to interpret the present:`The Voice of Cassandra'`The Tablets of Gilgamesh'`The Bricks of Babel'`The Books of Don Quixote'`The Screen of Hal'Alberto Manguel invites the reader to consider a number of different and important questions:How does language itself determine, limit and enlarge our imagination of the world?How do the stories we tell help us perceive ourselves and others?Can such stories lend a whole society an identity, whether true or false?Is it possible for stories to change us and the world we live in?This is a book to keep and to refer back to. The prose is a joy to read for its own sake, the underlying messages are enduring and the questions are timeless.Jennifer Cameron-Smith