Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
by Anne Fadiman

List Price: $12.00
Our Price: $4.39
You Save: $7.61 (63%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions

Book Summary Information

Book Reviews of Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

Book Review: Books, wonderful books.
Summary: 5 Stars

I have always made dog ears in my books, and felt a little bad about it, how can I treat my beloved books this way, now suddenly I can see that I'm not alone, and still I can call myself a book lover. Books are to be used, the more the book shows it is used, the more it has been loved. In one of her essays Fadiman tells about Thomas Babington Macaulay and the way he reads books about the places he visits while he actually is there. Anne, you and Macaulay have another soulmate here in middle Norway. When I travel my suitcase is always so heavy I almost can't carry it. And what else in life can be compared to reading Johanny Spyri's Heidi for your daughters when actually visiting the town, reading Victor Hugo on a goat down the Seine, or The Road to Asmara, while sitting in a cafe in Asmara, the capitol of Eritrea. My Christmas reading this year contains (among others) of Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, and when visiting the Nidaros Cathedral this Christmas Day I had to bring a big purse to bring with me the book where Kristin visited this Christchurch of Nidaros.

We moved a couple of months ago. With a family of six it was wonderful to move to a bigger house, but there are fewer bookshelves here (at least so far). I have a book collection of several thousand books, and have now, for some weeks tried to go through the collection to see which books I can give away - oh, a terrible job. Anne Fadiman has through Ex Libris showed me that I can keep all my books, and even buy more, there is only a question of enough shelves, or fantasy enough to find other places for your books. I will still give away books, I will not be without the pleasure I see in other people's faces when I show them my boxes with books to be given away, and they can take when they want. But I will also still buy books. I can't live without them, and I'm sure I have fantasy enough to find room for them.

Must end my review now, it is time to read a book or two for my fine year old daughter.

Britt Arnhild Lindland, Norway

Summary of Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

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 favorites and a powerful urge to revisit one's own "odd shelf" pronto. --Alix Wilber

Books & Reading

• Books > Subjects > Literature & Fiction
• Essays