Manguel, whose "A History of Reading" I loved, admits that he has a bad habit of digressing during his essays, and that happens here quite a bit - to the point that I am not sure the title makes sense for the book itself.
For a collection of short, personal essays, there seems to be a wall he sets up between himself and the reader - an unwillingness to share all of himself. For example, he swipes aside the reason he and his partner had to leave the home they loved in France.
He covers the inability of language to reflect Reality, how unreliable the alphabet and words are - subjects he and many others, have covered in depth elsewhere. He is obviously erudite in a very Old School kind of way (and I would even call his writing style, and the composition of his sentences to be very Old School - he does remind me of R L Stevenson, without the casualness), and I found his stories of Jewish theology informative. And, the last 3 chapters, on being Director of the National Library of Argentina, and what role that Library should assume in the modern world, for the country as a whole, and for readers and non-readers, had some interesting questions. Not surprisingly, most without answers (they mostly are an ongoing dialog for every other national library as well).
OK, OK, he read to a blind Borges as a boy. Reminder, that 2 Stars is "It was OK".
This short tome interested me when I first saw it on a New Titles table, but I put it down at the bookstore. Then read a review, with other books also covered, and had a quick, strong interest in it. I bought it as an ebook that day, and started reading it that night. Sadly, it never really grabbed/engaged me.