Fourteen years later, Manguel anchors his new book in the primal connection between reading and curiosity. Tracing twenty-five centuries of human history, from the fourth century BC to the present day, Manguel dedicates each of his chapters to a single character-ranging from our best-known thinkers, scientists, and artists to seemingly minor figures of whom we know little more than one inspired utterance-in whom he identifies a particular way of asking the question "Why?"
