Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader (1998)

Essays about growing up with a brilliant father and book loving family. She uses amazing vocabulary. I kept a growing list as I read along. ( )

In this collection of essays readers have a window into the books, interests, and life of Anne Fadiman, an author and reader who is the daughter of authors and readers Clifton Fadiman and Annalee Jacoby Fadiman. The "Common Reader" of the subtitle takes its name from the column she writes for Civilization, and the essay by Virginia Woolf. These essays were her columns, in some cases lengthened, renamed, or otherwise changed.

I have read and reread this book, and each time I come away with something more. The first essay, "Marrying Libraries," about how she and her husband went through the painstaking process of combining their books, never fails to make me laugh, as does "Inset a Carrot" (the title in complete with editing marks that I can't reproduce here) as I recognize my own proofreading tendencies. Her ambivalence about how gender equality is changing our language in "The His'er Problem" sets me thinking about how language changes and what might be lost or gained while it does. I find myself as a book lover in these pages, from enjoying sesquipedalians - long words - to arguing with her over the proper way to read a book (I cannot bring myself to write marginalia in most books). If you enjoy books about books, this is a must read. ( )

recommended for: all readers,those who love beautiful language, essays

This is one of my favorite books. The daughter of Clifton Fadiman can write! These are wonderful essays about life, family, and most importantly, about books & reading. All are interesting & written beautifully, and they also have a lot of warmth & humor. This is a book worth owning to be able to reread certain essays every once in a while.

This book is a perfect gift for anyone who enjoys reading, books, and language. ( )

Lovely essays by a lifelong bibliophile. A pleasure to read!


"Scorn Not the Sonnet"
p. 33 - Wordsworth, on the sonnet: "In truth, the prison, into which we doom / Ourselves, no prison is..."

"Never Do That To A Book"
p. 38 - [J:]ust as there is more than one way to love a person, so is there more than one way to love a book.

p. 42 - "What better condition could we desire to see them in?" - Charles Lamb, on used/worn-out books

p. 43 The trouble...is that we love our books to pieces.

"Nothing New Under the Sun"
p. 103 (footnote, linked quotes) "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be...and there is no new thing under the sun." -Ecclesiastes
"We come too late to say anything which has not been said already." -Jean de la Bruyere, 1688
"We can say nothing but what hath been said." -Robert Burton, 1621
"Nothing is said that has not been said before." -Terence, 161 BC

"The P.M.'s Empire of Books"
p. 139 - William Gladstone's On Books and the Housing of Them

p. 145 - "What man who really loves his books delegates to any other human being , as long as there is breath in his body, the office of inducting them into their homes?" -Gladstone

"Secondhand Prose"
p. 150 - "Alas. Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore!" -Henry Ward Beecher
p. 150 - In a secondhand bookstore, each volume is one-of-a-kind, neither replaceable from a publisher's warehouse nor visually identical to its original siblings, which have accreted individuality with every change of ownership. If I don't buy the book now, I may never have another chance.

p. 153 - "And I realized that books get their value from the way they coexist with the other books a person owns, and that when they lose their context, they lose their meaning." -author's friend Adam ( )

You had me at "learned about sex from Fanny Hill."