By Maryanne Wolf. 308 pp., illustrated. New York, Harper, 2007. $25.95. ISBN 978-0-06-018639-5.
"We were never born to read." So begins Maryanne Wolf's enjoyableaccount of the neuroscience of reading. This key insight, thatour brains evolved for aural–oral language but not forextracting meaning from print, sets the stage for a journeythrough the history of the alphabet, changing cultural viewsabout the import of reading, neuroscientific approaches to understandingthe reading brain, and the vexing issues of reading impairment.Along the way, Wolf, with remarkable agility in a relativelycompact book (intended for both aficionados and the uninitiated),transitions seamlessly between disciplines as diverse as linguistics,neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and archeology, . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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