Customer Reviews

Ex Libris

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman

Anne Fadiman comes from a famous literary family, and these short pieces reflect her background well. Her light-hearted reflections on books, and the part they play in the lives of those who love reading, offer insights into her family and other people that can be of interest to all bibliophiles.

This book of essays is like a box of delicious chocolates with different centres, not to be devoured in one greedy session, but tasted slowly, one by one, with appreciation.
Margaret Blair

If you are a bibliophile and would like to bury your nose in a charming collection of essays on reading and collecting books-then this is a book that you will enjoy reading.

I picked up the book on a whim and put it away to read at some future date. Then, late one evening I picked up the book, and casually started reading it. I was hooked! I continued reading till the wee hours of the morning, and only put it away when I had finished reading the book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.

This slim volume with about 160 pages has about 18 essays. And as Robert McCrum of the "London Observer," put it, "Witty, enchanting, and supremely well-written, one of the most delightful volumes to have come across my desk in a long time..."

This collection of personal essays is a celebration of the written word. After reading this book I have become a carnal lover of books and boldly make notes on the margins of the book. Fadiman says that there are two kinds of book lovers: courtly and carnal. For courtly lovers the "book's physical self was sacrosanct," but for the carnal lovers "a book's words were holy, but the paper, cloth, cardboard, glue, thread, and link that contained them were a mere vessel, and it was no sacrilege to treat them as wantonly as desire and pragmatism dictated."

Fadiman is the editor of "The American Scholar," and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner and shares her love affair with books in this collection of essays Fadiman grew up in a house filled with books. Both her parents were well known writers. Her father, Clifton Fadiman, was a critic, anthologist and a judge of the Book of the Month Club and her mother; Annalee Jacoby Fadiman was a Time correspondent.

Beautifully written, warm, and generous. A book lovers delight! Ms. Fadiman does a wonderful job of bringing to life each individual portrayed in her essays. A very engaging, often humorous, and lively read.

This book is adorable! (And I've been enjoying seeing all the perfectly spelled reviews here!) I was only sorry it was so short. Every chapter made me wish I had the author for a friend. I almost cried with joy reading the description of the Fadiman family at the restaurant, horribly distracted from the food by misspellings-- I always thought we were the only ones.
I was a big fan of her genial father Clifton, and I see the talent came down in the family. Anne, come to Paris!

What a captivating and fun little book! I don't attach to it the same deep meanings that some of my fellow reviewers did, but there is plenty here that any true book lover will identify with and enjoy.

I found the book a bit uneven -- we've all read enough bad poetry to want to avoid reading about flawed verse in the chapter called Scorn Not the Sonnet, and while the point is well made in Nothing New Under the Sun, I felt I was going to suffocate under the weight of all those footnotes. But where Ex Libris is good it is very good.

On this book's pages, you'll find charming anecdotes about messages written inside book covers, funny stories about people compelled to proofread at all time, an essay on the joy of reading a book in the place it is about, and a little stab at the annoying practice of removing the gender from popular sayings. Every one a gem.

This is also a handsome edition of the book, making it a great gift for any book lovers you know. It's an even better gift to yourself.

If you adore reading, you will soon find yourself wrapped up in the essays that compose this book by Anne Fadiman. Not only do we get to see her love of books, but we see how her upbringing brought along this love and the how she rears her children to embrace books as she and her husband do. The reader is swept up in Anne's conversational way of describing from things that irk her (in an essay about correct punctuation) to the emotional task of trying to merge her and her husband's libraries. Over the course of the 18 essays I found I almost enjoyed them all. One or two essays seemed a bit out of place, but for the most part, I just wished it was longer. :)

Why do we keep books on a shelf? According to one of the essays in Anne Fadiman's gem of a book, Ex Libris, it's because they provide a concrete picture of who we are and how we developed. This message really hits home for those of us who have tried to find an out-of-print book that captures a particular time in our past. Fadiman understands this obsession. I originally borrowed Ex Libris from the library, and then found myself climbing up a ladder in a used bookstore to add this must-have volume to my own bookshelves. This is a book whose content I have shared with bibliophiles and nonbibliophiles alike. My husband and I both reacted in horror to Fadiman's story of her distress while combining libraries with her spouse...a merger that we both agree will never occur in our own home. My co-workers laughed and nodded at the description of proofreaders being compared to the person sweeping up elephant dung after a parade. And, another person in my life couldn't understand my excitement of reminiscing about and keeping books read years ago, which she termed "clutter." Fadiman beautifully captures and describes all these and more peculiarities of book lovers.

Anne Fadiman's 'Ex Libris' kept me entertained with these light-hearted, hilarious essays about books. Ok, so she confesses of eing a bit obsessed with her passion. Her life long love affair with books and language has become chapters in her own life story. Fadiman admits she learned about [love] from her father's copy of 'Fanny Hill.' And at one time found herself reading a 1974 Toyota Corolla manual because it was the only thing in her apartment she hadn't read.

Fadiman recounts a book lover's odyssey in her well-tuned personal essays. Finding her ("True Womanhood") in favorite anecdotes from Father Bernard O'Reilly. not seeing eye-to-eye, but thankful for him that she got to know her great-grandmother. In ("Marrying Libraries"), she didn't feel completely married without merging her and her husband's collection. Her well-worded apology on plagiarism ("Nothing New Under the Sun") is witty and raw. Her first introduction to books at the age of four, when she liked building castles ("My Ancestral Castles") with her father's pocket-sized twenty-two volume set of midnight blue 'Trollope.' Fadiman's addiction to long words ("The Joy of Sesquipedalians") would beat me in a game of scrabble. Just sitting at the breakfast table of the Fadiman's would bring new intellect to one's vocabulary. Thanks you, Carl Van Vechten! Would you know the meaning of monophysite, ithyphallic, aspergill or opopanax?

Fadiman's happiness is a round-trip ticket to any used bookshop namely New York's finest ("Secondhand Prose") ponders the words of Henry Ward Beecher, "Where human nature so weak as in the bookstore!" The temptations of books kept her in good company with Southey and Macaulay. There are family members and friends who have brought me books on many occasions and I can relate to Anne Fadiman. I enjoyed this very much. It taught me to be wise, be a good speller, tackle big words and love books alot more.

Lovely, endearing, addictive little book. Every bibliophile should read it at least once. It's a light book but incredibly well written. It compiles about 12 essays, each discussing a different tenet of Ann Fadiman's compulsive book worship. All of us who enjoy reading will find commonalities with Fadiman. The love of book shelfing and re-shelfing, the joy of encountering new words, the frequent visits to bookstores, the reading out loud, etcetra etcetra....she covers practically everything, whilst interweaving into the text humorous anecdotes and personal titbits. The chapter which fascinated me the most was the one about plagiarism in literature, especially the story about the man who published her mother's work in a book under his own name and then dedicated the book to her mum!!! The nerve! I still cant believe it...I would have been mortified if I were in her mother's shoes. If you love books, Ex Libris will keep you entertained for hours...read one or two of the essays every night - you'll be thoroughly amused and oh, for the sesquipedalian-lovers out there, you'll need a dictionary by your side, because you're sure to bump into a few long words that you've never seen before.

I laughed so hard at the essay on proofreading (one of her friends described her life as a copyeditor as analagous to that of the person sweeping up the dung behind an elephant in a parade) while waiting to board a plane that when I finally walked on, still reading, a woman in first class grabbed my arm and demanded to know what book I was reading!

Don't be fooled by the Latin title and "serious" cover. These essays are tongue-in-cheek, down to earth, and absolutely hilarious, especially if you're a voracious reader-- or have ever had to do any copyediting.

Fadiman is humble and self-deprecating, describing her family as compulsive proofers-- I loved the example of them gleefully pointing out errors in restaurant menus. But it's impossible not to be bowled over by her turns-of-phrase and her wit.

The essay about how she and her husband married their book collections is also a standout-- and one that anybody can relate to who's ever been through this, whether it be with books, cds or spices!

My only complaint about this book is that it's impossible to put down, and that it's too short. When I got back from my (business) trip I immediately photocopied the essay on proofreading for the head of marketing, the artistic director, and the managing director of the theatre where I work (there had been a crisis in semicolons in my absence). This book is a reference for any teacher, writer, reader or marketer. One of the best reads of the year!