Bodies and BooksIn nineteenth century America, Gillian Silverman contends, readingand particularly book readingprecipitated intense fantasies of communion. In handling a book, the reader imagined touching and being touched by the people affiliated with that book's narrative worldan author, a character, a fellow reader. This experience often led to a sense of consubstantiality, a fantasy that the reader, the material book, and the imagined other were momentarily