Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader - Hardcover

Fadiman, Anne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0713993154 ISBN 13: 9780713993158

Publisher: Allen Lane, 1999

Synopsis

Anne Fadiman is the sort of person who learned about sex from her father's copy of Fanny Hill, and who once found herself poring over a 1974 Toyota Corolla manual because it was the only thing in her apartment that she had not read at least twice. EX LIBRIS recounts a lifelong obsession with books and language. Writing with humour and erudition she moves easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. 'Of all addictions, bibliophilia is the noblest and most dangerous: in Anne Fadiman, the disease has found amost engaging chronicler and analyst. EX LIBRIS will provide enjoyable moments of recognition for all book obsessives' - Alain de Botton

About this title

Review

The subtitle of Anne Fadiman's slim collection of essays is Confessions of a Common Reader, but if there is one thing Fadiman is not, it's common. In her previous work of non-fiction, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, she brought both skill and empathy to her balanced exploration of clashing cultures and medical tragedy. The subject matter here is lighter, but imbued with the same fine prose and big heart. Ex Libris is an extended love letter to language and to the wonders it performs. Fadiman is a woman who loves words; in "The Joy of Sesquipedalians" (very long words), she describes an entire family besotted with them:

When I was growing up, not only did my family walk around spouting sesquipedalians, but we viewed all forms of intellectual competition as a sacrament, a kind of holy water as it were, to be slathered on at every opportunity.

From very long words it's just a short jump to literature, and Fadiman speaks joyfully of books, book collecting and book ownership ("In my view, 19 pounds of old books are at least 19 times as delicious as one pound of fresh caviar"). In "Marrying Libraries" Fadiman describes the emotionally fraught task of merging her collection with her husband's:

After five years of marriage and a child, George and I finally resolved that we were ready for the more profound intimacy of library consolidation. It was unclear, however, how we were to find a meeting point between his English-garden approach and my French-garden one.

Perhaps some marriages could not have stood the strain of such an ordeal, but for this one, the merging of books becomes a metaphor for the solidity of their relationship. Over the course of 18 charming essays Fadiman ranges from the "odd shelf" ("a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection reveals a good deal about its owner") to plagiarism ("the more I've read about plagiarism, the more I've come to think that literature is one big recycling bin") to the pleasures of reading aloud ("When you read silently, only the writer performs. When you read aloud, the performance is collaborative"). Fadiman delivers these essays with the expectation that her readers will love and appreciate good books and the power of language as much as she does. Indeed, reading Ex Libris is likely to bring up warm memories of old favourites and a powerful urge to revisit one's own "odd shelf" pronto. --Alix Wilber

Review

"A smart little book that one can happily welcome into the family and allow to start growing old." --Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "The New York Times"

"A book for bookworms . . . 18 stylish, dryly humorous essays"--"Entertainment Weekly"

A smart little book that one can happily welcome into the family and allow to start growing old. "Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times"

A book for bookworms . . . 18 stylish, dryly humorous essays "Entertainment Weekly""

A smart little book that one can happily welcome into the family and allow to start growing old. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

A book for bookworms . . . 18 stylish, dryly humorous essays Entertainment Weekly

"

"A smart little book that one can happily welcome into the family and allow to start growing old." --Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

"A book for bookworms . . . 18 stylish, dryly humorous essays" --Entertainment Weekly

Edition details

• Publisher: Allen Lane
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0713993154
• ISBN 13: 9780713993158
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144