"What does the term "reading" mean to you? This alternative history of reading tells the stories of atypical readers and the impact had on their lives by neurological conditions affecting their ability to make sense of the printed word: from dyslexia, hyperlexia, and alexia to synesthesia, hallucinations, and dementia. The book's focus on neurodiversity aims to transform our understanding of the very concept of reading. Drawing on personal testimonies gathered from literature, film, life writing, social media, scientific journals, medical case studies, and other sources to express how cognitive differences have shaped people's experiences both on and off the page, Matthew Rubery contends that there is no single activity known as reading. Instead, there are multiple ways of reading (and, for that matter, not reading) despite the ease with which we use the term in conversation and act as if everyone does it in essentially the same fashion. Pushing us to rethink what it means to read, Reader's Block moves toward an understanding of reading as a spectrum that is capacious enough to accommodate the full range of activities documented in this fascinating and highly original book"--

Matthew Rubery is Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of The Untold Story of the Talking Book (2016) and co-editor of Further Reading (2020).

Introduction: The Unideal Reader
1. Dyslexia
2. Hyperlexia
3. Alexia
4. Synesthesia
5. Hallucinations
6. Dementia
Epilogue