Tuesday, December 2, 2008

EX LIBRIS: CONFESSIONS OF A COMMON READER by Anne Fadiman

by Anne Fadiman

Word geeks, carnal book lovers, salivate. If you like books about books, books that celebrate your celebration of books and words, you're going to love this book. Just how many times did I say the word book there?

Anne Fadiman grew up in a family who climax on the joy of sesquipedalians. She and her brother are carnal book lovers - people who love their books to pieces, consider hard use not as disrespect but intimacy, bringing them everywhere, even to the sauna. Then Anne Fadiman marries and the conjugalization of their books is treated with more angst than the marriage of their finances.

As Entertainment Weekly Harlan describes this, "18 stylish, dryly humorous essays that pay tribute to the joy of reading, the delights of a language, and the quirks of fellow bibliophiles."

0 comments: