Bringhurst’s small pamphlets (always lovingly designed and printed) are among my favorite things. This one is, unsurprisingly, a full-throated defense of the book. Bringhurst takes a “nonmaterial” definition of the book that includes pictures, oral traditions, and more; and he sees reading as bringing our attention to the world, trying to make sense of what is before us. Reading sometimes gets spoken of as if it were merely an enjoyable pastime, something we could easily trade for other pleasures—television, cinema, or so on. But here Bringhurst argues that reading is our way of understanding the world, and so of engaging with it. That makes reading not a diversion but the stuff of life itself.