I simply could not bring myself to put this book down. And what is this book that kept me engaged the whole evening? It was a wonderful little book called Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman.  And to think that I had almost passed up the book when I first spotted it in the bookstore because of its Latin sounding title. 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 this delighful collections of essays on a whim, while browsing through the always interesting book shelves at Kepler’s in Menlo Park. Once I was in possession of the book, I  put it away with the intention of reading it at some indeterminate future date. For the moment it was sufficient that I had discovered an interesting and eclectic book that promised to be a good read. Then, late one evening sometime in the year 2001 I picked up the book, and casually started reading it. I was instantly hooked. I continued reading till the wee hours of the morning, and only put it away after I read the last page. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.

This slim volume with about 160 pages has about 18 essays. In this book Fadiman share her on-going love affair with books. 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…” Need I say more?

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.” To some Fadiman’s observations might come as a bit of a shock, but I think her thoughts on approaching your books as a carnal lover makes a lot of sense provided you don’t deliberately deface the pages of the book. I find that jotting comments or thoughts on the margins of the book helps me a lot. It helps me understand what my first impressions or if there was a tangential thought that popped into my head. I bet you would do the same once you read Fadiman’s book.

Fadiman is no common reader. She grew up in a house surrounded by books. Both her parents were accomplished and 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 distinguished war correspondent during WW-II and worked with Time.

She is the editor of The American Scholar and a National Book Critics Circle Award. She currently teaches at Yale University.

Related Link: Shefaly’s review of Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader By Anne Fadiman, Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998