Ex Libris - Confessions of a Common Reader

Synopsis: 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.

Review: Another book that's perfect for bibliophile's. Anne has written eighteen essays about her love of words and books. It's only a short volume .. I read it in an afternoon, but it sings of the love she has for collecting, organizing and of course reading books. Little gems like 'The Odd Shelf' which Anne believes we all have in our houses somewhere. The shelf that contain's books/publications that bear no resemblance or connection to any of the other books in our libraries (Apparently George Orwell had a bound set of ladies magazines which he liked to read in the bath and Phillip Larkin had a rather large collection of spanking related pornography ) Anne has an extensive collection of books on polar exploration as she has a yearning for what C.S. Lewis called 'Northernness'. I didn't think I had an 'Odd Shelf' but now I think about it I have got a collection of books about walking .. you know the sort of thing pub walks/tea shop walks/river walks/coastal walks ... which I use far more in my imagination that I do in actuality. I feel like once I've sat and studied the maps in the books for half an hour then really I've had enough exercise for one day. Another essay is entitled 'Never Do That to a Book' where Anne explores the theory that there is more than one way to love a book. I have had to admit to certain book abuses in the past but sensitive readers may well need to look away when reading this piece. Anne says that her family are lovers of words in books but are not particularly attached to the paper, cardboard, cloth, glue, thread and ink that contain them ... her father, for instance, whilst reading on a flight, used to tear off each page of his paperback after he'd read it and throw it in the bin in order to reduce the weight. The family literally love their books to pieces.

There's lots here to enjoy .. including a piece on private proofreading (you know, where you can't help but spot the spelling/grammar mistakes on menu's, manuals, catalogues and so on.) I must admit to doing this even though I know my own spelling .. and particularly punctuation .. is far from perfect. However I'm not nearly as bad as Anne's mother who filled large envelopes with clippings of all the mistakes printed in her local newspaper and mailed them to the editor when they got to a suitable size.

I didn't get quite as much pleasure from reading it as I did Susan Hill's Howards End is on the Landing .. it wasn't quite as comfy cosy and there was less discussion about actual books but it was still a delight and I'm definitely going to look into her other writings.