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Ex Libris
Confessions of a Common Reader
First published 1998 · 176 pages
A warm, witty love letter to the physical and emotional weight of books, perfect for anyone who considers their library a living, breathing roommate.
What it feels like
Reading this collection feels like settling into a worn leather armchair in a sunlit, dust-moted library with a brilliantly articulate friend. The pace is decidedly leisurely, inviting you to savor each perfectly constructed sentence and wry observation about the eccentricities of the reading life. Fadiman's tone is both erudite and deeply affectionate, wrapping the reader in a cozy, nostalgic mood that celebrates the tactile joy of dog-eared pages and marginalia. The prose is elegant and sparkling, effortlessly weaving literary history with intimate family anecdotes. It is a book designed to delight unapologetic bibliophiles—those who obsess over grammar, merge their book collections as a sign of true commitment, and understand that a life is best measured by the books that accompanied it.
- Mood
- cozy
- nostalgic
- intellectual
- warm
- sunlit
- Tone
- wry
- erudite
- affectionate
- self-deprecating
- charming
- Pace
- leisurely
- Themes
- the physical life of books · familial bonds through literature · quirks of bibliophiles · language and memory · the merging of lives
- The writing
- Elegant, precise, and sparkling with wit, featuring a rich vocabulary and perfectly crafted sentences.
- The arc
- A gentle, affectionate stroll through a life measured in reading, culminating in a warm affirmation of the enduring power of the written word.
- Who it's for
- Unapologetic bibliophiles who smell old paper, obsess over grammar, and view their bookshelves as autobiographies.
About the book
In these eighteen essays, Anne Fadiman "recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language."--Jacket.
Ex Libris recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family.
As someone who played at blocks with her father's twenty-two-volume set of Trollope ("My Ancestral Castles") and who considered herself truly married only when she and her husband had merged collections ("Marrying Libraries"), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of flyleaf inscriptions, the perverse pleasures of compulsive proofreading, the allure of long words, and the satisfactions of reading aloud.
Description from Open Library.
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