This history of the books of Reading Abbey covers the period from the abbey's foundation to its dissolution, and follows up the dispersal of the book collections to c.1610. It provides valuable material on the use ways in which books were used, and about the intellectual life of a medieval monastery. By continuing the story beyond the Dissolution, and charting the initial stages of the dispersal of the Abbeys books (many into the large institutional collections which are their homes today), Alan Coates makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the fate of monastic books and book-collecting in the post-Dissolution period.