It is a miracle humans can read. It is a miracle we are able to decode not only the symbols of our alphabets but also the meanings entrenched behind sounds, word combinations and sentences. “Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain,” written by Maryanne Wolf, gives ample evidence to support these facts.

Wolf starts her book with the statement, “We were never born to read.” As a student at a small liberal arts school, majoring in a social science, this is hard to grasp. All I do is read. Every day I get home from classes and activities and assess my reading load for the night. It is always daunting. How can it be that this thing that takes up so much of my time is not innate within me?
Wolf examines this exact question, beginning with the earliest known languages and writing systems. From the Sumerians and Egyptians, we gain our first case study in written language.   Wolf follows written language through time, examining the advent of alphabets as we now know them and assessing the importance of our knowledge of symbols.

It is not necessarily the history of the written word, however, that is most fascinating within this book. It is the examination of the human brain and the undeniable evidence that reading is a lot harder than we may think. Our reading brain is our left brain and, though the areas of the brain used to read different languages vary, the English reader uses four parts of the brain. Through a complex system of interactions within these four parts of our brain, we are able to decode the meaning of the written word.

It is not enough for us just to be able to identify what a word may say due to its letter combination. Much of what we must know in order to read effectively has only a little to do with letters and is tied much more closely into syntax, semantics and phonology. These factors are made easier to learn if children are read to as infants and toddlers, expanding their vocabularies and their understanding of how words work together to make complex ideas.

It is truly no wonder reading disabilities exist. It is a marvel that anyone can read at all, and Wolf takes time to examine the most commonly discussed reading disability: dyslexia. People with dyslexia are often more gifted in some left-brain activities than others, and some of the most talented people of the Common Era are known to have been dyslexic.

As a research scientist, Wolf identifies that she is not used to writing for the general public and this is evident at times throughout the book. However, it is impossible not to find interest even within the scientific rhetoric, and it is only so ironic that in order to ascertain the information from this book, one must read.