Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader - Anne Fadiman

[goodreads]

Title: Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
Author: Anne Fadiman
Genre: Essay, non-fiction
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 162
Date read: July, 2010

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.

I love books about books, so when a friend recommended this as one of the best of the genre, I knew I had to pick it up. And it didn't disappoint.

Ex Libris is a charming essay collection all about books, reading and the love of both. As something of a bibliophile myself, I could very easily relate to Anne Fadiman's experiences, and was delighted to see some of my own thoughts echoed in her writing.