The book aims to be a middle ground between a praise of books—that is, of reading—and the very meaning of reading.
The author surveys numerous writers and texts to ultimately demonstrate how writing manages to portray, in differing ways, seemingly similar situations and contexts.
Furthermore, reading is an introspective process through which people actively interpret the resonances emerging from events and words.
Writing is thus the conduit between a story and the reader's personal life: rather than merely understanding the writer, the reader pursues their own spiritual path, activated and nourished by reading.
Two statements from the book leave a lasting impression, one from the writer’s perspective and the other from the reader’s: Petrarch says in Epistulae Familiares

I want my reader, whoever he may be, to think only of me...
I do not want him to attend to his business and study at the same time; I do not want him to master effortlessly what I wrote not without effort

; Machiavelli says in a 1513 letter to Vettori:

when evening comes, I return home and enter my study...
and for four hours I feel no boredom; I forget every worry, I do not fear poverty; death does not dismay me

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The book is an enjoyable read, but it feels a «bit strained», lacking a true underlying thread.

Reading