Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman (English) Paperback Bo

Description: Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman The author is the sort of person who learned about sex from her fathers 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. This title recounts her lifelong obsession with books. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Anne Fadiman is the sort of person who learned about sex from her fathers 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. One of the most delightful volumes to have come across my desk in a long while...witty, enchanting and supremely well-written -- Robert McCrum, Observer Notes A charming account of a lifelong obsession with books, which combines anecdotes about figures such as Orwell and Coleridge with tales of the authors own pathologically literary family. "One of the most delightful volumes to have come across my desk in a long while..." Robert McCrum, The Observer. Author Biography Anne Fadiman is editor of The American Scholar and an award-winning journalist. Her first book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down won the US National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction. She lives in New York City. Kirkus UK Review A confessional from the daughter of a pathologically literary family, once reduced to poring over a 1974 Toyota Corolla manual because shed read everything else at home at least twice. Essential reading for the serious book-lover. (Kirkus UK) Kirkus US Review Award-winning journalist and editor Fadiman (The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, 1997) comes from a bookish family (her father is Clifton Fadiman). And part of the charm of these collected personal essays about books and book-loving is the way she adhesively, casually, playfully chronicles her family through its books and bibliomania. An essay about the devoted readers compulsive love of proofreading opens novelistically with the Fadiman parents and their adult children sitting down to a restaurant dinner and, as their preferred first course, passionately - helplessly? - correcting the menus typos. As a reporter who is here making a transition to the first-person essayists voice, Fadiman (also the new editor of the American Scholar) maintains a sparkling sense of story, whether the stories tell us about her or about someone else. And her book shows an impish range in subject. In "Never Do That to a Book," she comments on hard uses made of books: how were wont to scribble in them, even teethe on them. "My Odd Shelf" discusses that part of a bibliomaniacs library dedicated to the anomalous fervent hobby (for George Orwell, it was "ladies magazines from the 1860s, which he liked to read in his bathtub." Fadimans own odd shelf holds volumes about the history of polar explorations, and she retells some of these sagas in admirably vivid and unadorned style. At times, the origin of the essays as commissioned pieces for the authors column in Civilization magazine does restrict their scope: they seem too brief, glib, coy, or intellectually unventuresome. As a self-described romantic whose imagination lauds the Victorians and seems jovially (and delightfully) anachronistic, Fadiman comes across sometimes as an escapist unwilling to examine the terms of her escape or to question them. Instead, shes intelligently entertained by books - and shes entertaining. (Kirkus Reviews) Details ISBN0140283706 Author Anne Fadiman Pages 144 Publisher Penguin Books Ltd Year 2000 ISBN-10 0140283706 ISBN-13 9780140283709 Format Paperback Publication Date 2000-03-02 Imprint Penguin Books Ltd Subtitle Confessions of a Common Reader Place of Publication London Country of Publication United Kingdom DEWEY 814.54 Media Book Edition 1st Short Title EX LIBRIS Language English Residence New York City, NY, US Birth 1955 UK Release Date 2000-03-02 AU Release Date 2000-03-02 NZ Release Date 2000-03-02 Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:145049965;

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