Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader: Amazon.co.uk: Anne Fadiman: Books

Amazon.co.uk 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 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Description

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 wittily recounts a lifelong obsession with books. Writing with humour and erudition she moves easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. 'One of the most delightful volumes to have come across my desk in a long while...witty, enchanting and supremely well-written' -- Robert McCrum, Observer --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

A lovely book for book lovers 24 Jan 2004

By Saint Etienne

Format:Paperback

This short volume is ideal reading for any bibliophile. It contains eighteen essays, each six to eight pages in length – perfect for filling an otherwise idle ten minutes or so. Each one is unfailingly well written, funny and learned, and Fadiman is a lucid and likeable writer.

The essays are about the buying, collecting, organizing and reading of books – particularly engaging examples concern Fadiman and her husband finally deciding to combine their separate libraries; the various ways of marking a page (do you mark it with an object – and if so, what type of object? – or do you simply leave the book face down at the page?); the ‘Odd Shelf’ in one’s personal library (Fadiman describes the ‘Odd Shelf’ as ‘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’); and the revealing nature of book inscriptions.

An especially attractive feature of the essays is how they reveal Fadiman’s bibliophilia not as a replacement for other emotional attachments (not an unknown characteristic of bibliophiles), but as highlighting the strength of her relationships with her husband, children, parents and friends. Ex Libris is an intensely human book about a relationship with objects.

Very enjoyable.

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

Short and sweet ... too short! 16 Jun 2004

By Sally-Anne

This is far too short for such a delicious book. Now that I've finished reading it, I feel like an elephant who's been fed a small bowl of strawberries. Here are eighteen essays about loving books and the ostensibly eccentric behaviour of the book-besotted book-lover. I imagine anyone who would read this sort of book would probably identify with a fair number of the thoughts, feelings and activities Anne Fadiman confesses to in these essays. I confess to sharing some and aspiring to others. Also, I confess to envying the writer her wonderful, understanding, affectionate, bookish family. It took me about three weeks to read this small book, because I decided to ration myself to one essay per day, before going to work. It put me in a cheerful and contented state of mind and set me up for the day. Now I'm going to have to start it again.

I recommend this delightful and beautifully written book to anyone who loves books. You might like to have a good dictionary beside you when reading it. My vocabulary wasn't up to the job but my dictionary was on hand and now my vocabulary is a little bulkier than it was when I started.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

If you love books, you'll love EX LIBRIS 10 April 2001

By A Customer

As a rival publisher, it galls me to have to admit that this is a superb book - one that I would have loved to have published myself! For anyone remotely interested in books and reading, this is a must. Anne Fadiman writes warmly and wittily, and quite exquisitely, about her and her family's love of the written word. Definitely a book to keep by your bedside and one which you'll turn to again and again.