Writing, a means of recording spoken language, has long been regarded as secondary to language. Even Saussure, the founding father of modern linguistics, believed that writing is not language because ‘the spoken form alone consists the object’. The mind on paper: Reading, consciousness, and rationality, however, provides readers with a new perspective from which to view writing and literacy: the real cognitive significance of writing lies in the fact that it brings a new consciousness to speech. In his earlier book, The world on paper (1994), David Olson examined the crucial role played by writing and literacy in the formation and operation of current bureaucratic society. In this new volume, the author has investigated writing from a cognitive perspective and proposes that writing is less a medium of communication than a means of formalizing knowledge and of reflecting on thinking, which serves as the basis of rationality. The book consists of five parts, beginning with an introductory chapter in Part 1.

Part 2 (chapters 2–5) introduces the theoretical background for the book. Chapter 2 provides a brief summary of the history of writing to show that the invention of a writing system is also a discovery process of the implicit structures of speech. These meta-linguistic concepts pave the way for the ability to think about language and about thinking itself. The following three chapters review how the new pragmatists and the cognitive scientists address the relation between writing and mind. According to the author, the new pragmatists’ emphasis on the central importance of linguistic concepts do shed light on the idea that writing is a unique medium for creating concepts about language, which makes language itself an object of thought.

Part 3 (chapters 6–10) investigates the cognitive structures associated with writing, namely phonemes, words, sentences, prose, and ‘test questions’ in order to distinguish two orientations to language: one as a means of thinking (representing) and communicating about the world, the other a means of metarepresenting and hence reflecting on the language used.

Part 4 (chapters 11–12) examines the uses and implications of those cognitive structures. Chapter 11 discusses theories and claims about reading and the assessment of reading competence. Chapter 12 elaborates on the relation between everyday reasoning and formal rationality.

Part 5 (chapter 13) is the conclusion, in which the author tries to summarize the links between reading, consciousness, and rationality, and restates the central theme of the book, that a literate education is an introduction to the consciousness of language and also a contribution to the development of a modern mind.

In sum, Olson invites the readers to reconsider the crucial role of reading and writing in the formation of our consciousness and rationality. With this new book, the author consistently stresses the importance of literacy education for any individual living in an increasingly bureaucratic world.