The initial plan was to organise a conference, and then to publish proceedings. It would have been a closing conference for a great project, the Marie Skłodowska Curie project RASCIO. Reader, Author, Scholar in a Context of Information Overflow. How to Manage and Master Knowledge When There is Too Much to Know? (grant agreement no. 749180). The world pandemic of COVID-19 obliged us to cancel the event, originally planned for 10-12 December 2020 (then postponed to 13-15 April 2021), at the University Ca’ Foscari Venice, and entitled Authors as Readers in the Mamlūk Period and Beyond. Al-Ṣafadī and his Peers. We nevertheless proposed that all speakers directly write an article instead of a conference paper, and to publish the initially planned proceedings. Nine speakers replied positively and this book is the result of this initiative.