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15th out of 461 books
—
707 voters
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
by
Anne Fadiman
Anne Fadiman is--by her own admission--the sort of person who learned about sex from her father's copy of Fanny Hill, whose husband buys her 19 pounds of dusty books for her birthday, and who once found herself poring over her roommate's 1974 Toyota Corolla manual because it was the only written material in the apartment that she had not read at least twice.
This witty col...more
This witty col...more
Paperback, 162 pages
Published
November 25th 2000
by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
(first published 1998)
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Jan 24, 2008
Abigail
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Bibliophiles or Those Seeking to Understand Them...
Recommended to Abigail by:
Patrick
Shelves:
books-reading
Review Temporarily Removed.
24 likes · like · see review
view all 8 comments
Just a couple weeks ago, a great review of this book popped up on my update feed, (Ah, the magic of Goodreads) so when I spotted it at a booksale I went to last week for a dollar, I grabbed it quick. If you haven't read Jon's review yet, check it out:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Thanks to a bout of insomnia last night, I finished this and loved it. I feel like shoving this book onto some family and friends who think I'm much too obsessed with all things book. All of these essays show...more
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Thanks to a bout of insomnia last night, I finished this and loved it. I feel like shoving this book onto some family and friends who think I'm much too obsessed with all things book. All of these essays show...more
30 likes · like · see review
October 2012
I don't always read books about books, but when I do, my to-read list suddenly grows. Still, it's nice to read someone who understands me so well:
I don't always read books about books, but when I do, my to-read list suddenly grows. Still, it's nice to read someone who understands me so well:
"Alas," wrote Henry Ward Beecher. "Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore!" Mine is relatively strong at Barnes & Noble, because I know that if I resist a volume on one visit, and someone else buys it, an identical volume will pop up in its place like a plastic duck in a shooting gallery. And if I resist that one, there will...more
17 likes · like · see review
It has become familiar. Perhaps, excessively so. I have ventured again for family reasons to a funeral home. This is five times in the last nine months. This reflects a turning of corners in my family dynamics. While it isn't unusual for people at my work to pass prematurely, there has been a statistical glut in my family where people live beyond the norm and have now passed in quick succession. I have also begun buying books with regularity upon leaving the funeral home or cemetery. In itself,...more
Jan 28, 2008
Kathryn
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
book lovers!
Recommended to Kathryn by:
Melanie (thank you!)
Shelves:
non-fiction
I finished this book on my flight home from Florida and it provided me with great pleasure amidst my great dislike of flying. (Perchance I would have given it five stars had I read it from the cozy comfort of the couch in my den!) It felt so chummy to hear Anne's discussion of her love of books (both literary and tactile!) and I found myself nodding with agreement for many of her observations and confessions.
My favorite essays:
Marrying Libraries (of the joys and tribulations of merging one's li...more
My favorite essays:
Marrying Libraries (of the joys and tribulations of merging one's li...more
7 likes · like · see review
My aunt Heather recommended this book to me. She is exactly the type of reader Anne Fadiman is and also very frugal. So instead of buying books as gifts for me she mails me short lists of books she thinks I will enjoy and should check out at my local library.
This one was an easy beach read for me one year at Myrtle and then I read it again on a winter break. I later gave it to my cousin-in-law for a gift so I no longer have a copy of it by as I remember them each of the short stories were base...more
This one was an easy beach read for me one year at Myrtle and then I read it again on a winter break. I later gave it to my cousin-in-law for a gift so I no longer have a copy of it by as I remember them each of the short stories were base...more
Mar 22, 2009
rivka
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
all book lovers
Recommended to rivka by:
Jennie Peterson
Shelves:
borrowed,
non-fiction
I enjoyed this book, but perhaps not nearly as much as some of my friends seem to have. It's always nice to read something that makes me feel that someone out there is like me and/or my family -- that we're not completely crazy! ;)
So reading about another kid who was taught NOT to say "the hoi polloi", someone else who can't help but proofread menus, who is an obsessive book collector -- these are cool.
However. Anne Fadiman has an annoying to tendency to assume that her delineations are univers...more
So reading about another kid who was taught NOT to say "the hoi polloi", someone else who can't help but proofread menus, who is an obsessive book collector -- these are cool.
However. Anne Fadiman has an annoying to tendency to assume that her delineations are univers...more
6 likes · like · see review
This short collection of essays on the reading life is a true delight of a book. Anne Fadiman writes with self-depreciating joy about the pleasures and pains of the book obsessed, and reading her confessions helped reawaken (and soothe my guilt) about my own book-related afflictions. Her ruminations on marrying libraries (a task I have not yet been bold enough to undertake with my own husband), the art of inscriptions, and her clever discussion on plagiarism and the originality (or lack thereof)...more
6 likes · like · see review
This is a collection of essays first published in Civilization, the magazine of the Library of Congress, which is where I first read many of them. These essays were written by, for, and about booklovers. My favorites include "Never Do That to a Book" where the author discusses two different ways to love a book - "courtly love" in which the reader tries to keep the book in as pristine a state as possible vs. "carnal love" in which the reader does not care a bit about the appearances of a book, le...more
4 likes · like · see review
Jul 17, 2007
Lisa Vegan
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
everyone on goodreads,those who love beautiful language, essays
Shelves:
favorites,
reviewed,
non-fiction,
essays,
biography,
books-about-books,
altta,
humor,
bookclub
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.
This book is a perfect gift for anyone who enjoys reading, books, and language.
This book was WAAY too much fun. Anne Fadiman is Clifton Fadiman's daughter, and she has collected this book of essays about book-love. She is funny and frank and the book is a delight. There are essays on merging her library with her husband's, on the delight of finding long, delicious words, on sonnets, on "carnal-love" book lovers versus "courtly-love" book lovers (for the record, I'm in the carnal-love category--my books know they are loved), ink pens, flyleaf inscriptions, the compulsive ed...more
4 likes · like · see review
Jul 14, 2009
Wendi
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Sarah Brannon
Recommended to Wendi by:
Tina Dalton
My friend subconsciously suggested this book to me after a conversation we had about finding treasures hidden in books. She had just purchased a book for her husband, used book (the best kind), and within its pages she found a treasure trove of items left by the former owner(s). It sparked me to tell her how wonderful I thought that was, and how I loved finding notes scribbled in the margins of books. That's when she told me about Ex Libris.
This book may be sub-titled Confessions of A Common Rea...more
This book may be sub-titled Confessions of A Common Rea...more
Have you ever read a book and felt as though the author had beaten you? It is not fun. You purchase a book thinking, “Oh I’ve found a kindred spirit in this author. I can’t wait to read what he/she has to say”. Such was the book Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman.
It is a biased opinion, but I believe myself to be somewhat knowledgeable when it comes to all things book related. I am a bibliophile after all. I thought Anne Fadiman’s book would nourish those ideas. Wrong! Th...more
It is a biased opinion, but I believe myself to be somewhat knowledgeable when it comes to all things book related. I am a bibliophile after all. I thought Anne Fadiman’s book would nourish those ideas. Wrong! Th...more
~Preface~
This is one little book that I cannot pass up hunting for on Amazon. Will not. *checks tracking number list for fifth time* And I am now thoroughly convinced that a few good years of chair WHOMPING, voracious word eating, and a strenuous hike through the many 'eye blinks' of literature preserves one better than any Botox.
Marrying Libraries 3
I despise Fadiman for giving me one more thing to be anxious/terrified about: morphing my one day exhaustive library with that of my husband. It rem...more
This is one little book that I cannot pass up hunting for on Amazon. Will not. *checks tracking number list for fifth time* And I am now thoroughly convinced that a few good years of chair WHOMPING, voracious word eating, and a strenuous hike through the many 'eye blinks' of literature preserves one better than any Botox.
Marrying Libraries 3
I despise Fadiman for giving me one more thing to be anxious/terrified about: morphing my one day exhaustive library with that of my husband. It rem...more
3 likes · like · see review
I love books that discuss the importance of reading and I appreciate authors who can admit to an obsession with books. "I'd rather have a book, but in a pinch I'll settle for a set of Water Pik instructions."
Fadiman is the child of readers and is continuing this "habit" with her own family.
"Children are "able to fantasize are more extravagantly about their parents' tastes and discuss their aspirations and their vices by scanning their bookcases than by snooping in their closets. Their selves...more
Fadiman is the child of readers and is continuing this "habit" with her own family.
"Children are "able to fantasize are more extravagantly about their parents' tastes and discuss their aspirations and their vices by scanning their bookcases than by snooping in their closets. Their selves...more
1 like · like · see review
As the child of two incredibly literary parents (both of them writers and voracious readers), Anne Fadiman has written a collection of essays about her experiences with books, and not just reading them. She writes about plagiarism, secondhand stores, vocabulary lovers and the inscriptions we write - all told with a self depriciating and humorous voice.
Every essay entertained me. I'm sure part of that is the fact that I am a fellow lover of not just the written word itself, but the entire package...more
Every essay entertained me. I'm sure part of that is the fact that I am a fellow lover of not just the written word itself, but the entire package...more
2 likes · like · see review
I walked past Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader at the library and immediately turned around. Without reading the dust jacket, I added the book to my pile. Any book about books must be a good book.
After reading Ex Libris, I'm not so sure. The collection of essays is ten years old, and they already feel dated—particularly an essay about pens and typewriters. More than anything, though, I take umbrage with the subtitle. Fadiman is anything but the “common reader.” She is the...more
After reading Ex Libris, I'm not so sure. The collection of essays is ten years old, and they already feel dated—particularly an essay about pens and typewriters. More than anything, though, I take umbrage with the subtitle. Fadiman is anything but the “common reader.” She is the...more
7 likes · like · see review
Parts of this book are utterly delightful. The chapters on combining libraries (first that of her husband and her own after ten years of marriage, later on with her father's) get to how visceral and symbolic a love a books can be. There is also the chapter on how the first thing she used to do with books (her parents') was build castles. All refreshing. But then there were moments where I thought she was Joyce Chafen (the ghastly, oblivous mother in White Teeth) particularly with Fadiman U. But...more
2 likes · like · see review
This is my favorite book of essays on reading--I've never found another that can top the eloquence, brevity, and wit contained in this volume.
Things learned: the differences between a courtly and carnal lover of books, what the word sesquipedalians means (very long words), how & when to combine libraries with a fellow book reader you've joined houses with--do you give away the ragtag copy of x book because your partner has a nicer copy? Is a re-read the same without the book you grew up with...more
Things learned: the differences between a courtly and carnal lover of books, what the word sesquipedalians means (very long words), how & when to combine libraries with a fellow book reader you've joined houses with--do you give away the ragtag copy of x book because your partner has a nicer copy? Is a re-read the same without the book you grew up with...more
In these brief essays, Anne Fadiman gives voice to so many delights that come with loving books. From the happy sense of frenzy that comes with entering a hole-in-the-wall used bookstore to the simple pleasure of reading aloud or being read to, she echoes sentiments I've felt all my life but does it much more eloquently than I ever could. With stories of proofreading restaurant menus with her family and organizing her shelves meticulously by category, it would be easy for these essays to come ac...more
I've always said if I were in a situation where I could only have one book with me, and I would be in that situation for a long time, that I would take an anthology of short stories compiled by Clifton Fadiman (Anne's father). He was just a pure genius at putting together the best anthologies.
I carried Anne's book around a long time in my car (I always keep a book in the car so that I'm never caught without a book--especially when Houston has one of its infamous traffic pileups where one just si...more
I carried Anne's book around a long time in my car (I always keep a book in the car so that I'm never caught without a book--especially when Houston has one of its infamous traffic pileups where one just si...more
1 like · like · see review
Nov 23, 2007
Lilias
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
children of readers
Shelves:
non-fiction
First, a little bit about me: There are three things in particular that instill fear into many members of modern-day society and I embrace with pleasure. They are as follows:
1. Books (will make you BORING!)
2. Food (will make you FAT!)
3. Particularity (will make you UNBEARABLE!)
I cannot find it in myself to relate, and to some extent I've learned to deal with that. (Anyone who knows me well enough, has read the book, and happens upon this “review” will probably think, “Of course she centered in o...more
1. Books (will make you BORING!)
2. Food (will make you FAT!)
3. Particularity (will make you UNBEARABLE!)
I cannot find it in myself to relate, and to some extent I've learned to deal with that. (Anyone who knows me well enough, has read the book, and happens upon this “review” will probably think, “Of course she centered in o...more
3 likes · like · see review
I had purchased Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader some time ago on the recommendation of several fellow 50bookchallenge readers and thought this book would be an apt way to end the year.
A collection of essays written for Civilization: The Magazine of the Library of Congress (apparently OOP), Anne Fadiman explores her love of books, reading and writing. The titles alone -- "The Joy of Sesquipedalians"*, "Never Do That to a Book" and "Sharing the Mayhem" let me know we were kindred spirit...more
A collection of essays written for Civilization: The Magazine of the Library of Congress (apparently OOP), Anne Fadiman explores her love of books, reading and writing. The titles alone -- "The Joy of Sesquipedalians"*, "Never Do That to a Book" and "Sharing the Mayhem" let me know we were kindred spirit...more
2 likes · like · see review
The subtitle, "Confessions of a Common Reader," is modest at best. I only wish I were the sort of reader Anne Fadiman is. She consumes every book that comes her way, from large volumes of classic literature down to the owner's manual for her car. Her vocabulary is extensive; as a sort of strange game, I dug out my highlighter with the small post-it flags, and flagged every instance where I had to retrieve a dictionary. I ran out of flags, but visited the dictionary no less than 32 times in the r...more
1 like · like · see review
Random....very random book. I like it because - while I enjoy to read - this woman is in a completely different league. This was definitely an intimate view into her life. She wrote endearingly about her mother and father, her husband, her baby and at each juncture books seemed to play this major role. Even her bookshelves take on this sacred and familial presence in her home. But, these essays are random! You know, I bet Fadiman could have kept writing these pieces till kingdom come, cause read...more
I laughed out loud several times when I read this book, and forced long passages of this book on to my boyfriend, and several friends.
My boyfriend and I still keep the books in separate bookshelves - I organize more or less thematically and he (much like Fadiman's husband) organize everything by the category "books". (Actually, my boyfriend organize the books by the languages they are written in, but it still would drive me crazy.)
This is a sweet, funny and to-the-point collection of short stor...more
My boyfriend and I still keep the books in separate bookshelves - I organize more or less thematically and he (much like Fadiman's husband) organize everything by the category "books". (Actually, my boyfriend organize the books by the languages they are written in, but it still would drive me crazy.)
This is a sweet, funny and to-the-point collection of short stor...more
Fadiman is aggressively elitist in more than a few of these essays but I forgive her the snobbery because as an undeniable bibliophile I harbor my own prejudices--some I'm willing to share, others I keep quietly to myself for fear of offending fellow readers. Fadiman obviously has no such qualms and instead wears her disdain and superiority quite openly. Still, no booklover will fail to recognize another of their ilk and will find themselves nodding in agreement with much of what the author reve...more
Okay, so this book WON'T be for everyone, but I loved it! If you love books, and love hearing about other people who love books and why they love them and how they handle them and which ones they buy then this book will be for you too. Cleverly written essays all about books-yay!
Ex Libris is a collection of 18 essays by Anne Fadiman on books and bookishness. In these essays, Fadiman writes of her family� s obsession with words, merging bookcases with her husband, the case and treatment of books, her love of fountain pens, and more.[return][return]It� s hard for me not to like a woman who as a teenager got totally immersed in the works of Thomas Hardy and started classifying all the boys she loved as Damons or Clyms. (For me, they were Angels or Alecs, which is perhaps n...more
I've always said if I were in a situation where I could only have one book with me, and I would be in that situation for a long time, that I would take an anthology of short stories compiled by Clifton Fadiman (Anne's father). He was just a pure genius at putting together the best anthologies.
I carried Anne's book around a long time in my car (I always keep a book in the car so that I'm never caught without a book--especially when Houston has one of its infamous traffic pileups where one just si...more
I carried Anne's book around a long time in my car (I always keep a book in the car so that I'm never caught without a book--especially when Houston has one of its infamous traffic pileups where one just si...more
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Anne Fadiman, the daughter of Annalee Whitmore Jacoby Fadiman, a screenwriter and foreign correspondent, and Clifton Fadiman, an essayist and critic, was born in New York City in 1953. She graduated in 1975 from Harvard College, where she began her writing career as the undergraduate columnist at Harvard Magazine. For many years, she was a writer and columnist for Life, and later an Editor-at-Larg...more
More about Anne Fadiman...
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“My daughter is seven, and some of the other second-grade parents complain that their children don't read for pleasure. When I visit their homes, the children's rooms are crammed with expensive books, but the parent's rooms are empty. Those children do not see their parents reading, as I did every day of my childhood. By contrast, when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I know what I would see if I opened the door that says 'PRIVATE--GROWNUPS KEEP OUT': a child sprawled on the bed, reading.”
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285 people liked it
“I have never been able to resist a book about books.”
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74 people liked it
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