ABSTRACT
The author discusses several reasons for adopting a historical perspective on reading. A historical perspective would explicitly require them to reach beyond their own living memories via interviews with parents and grandparents to discover things about their reading histories that they cannot remember themselves. In this research, however, first-hand accounts would also be available from some of the adult readers as well. Manguel's history of reading introduces a wealth of different contexts around the globe, past and present, in which reading processes have developed. The interviews were also transcribed by the students. The interviews show adults currently reading a wide range of material for work and for pleasure, but also having been eclectic in their childhood and young adult reading as well. In relation to a historical perspective on reading, there is another, possibly even less well-researched aspect to be considered and that is histories of curricula developments.
