Ex Libris

Ex Libris is a book about being a reader, an exploration that goes beyond books that were being read/reviewed and into the greater surroundings. If looking at someone's library tells you what kind of person they are, Ex Libris admits the reader into the Fadiman household, detailing ordeals such as combining libraries, and how the greatest romantic thing a husband can do is locate a used bookstore she'd never been to before, containing all her favourite types of reading material. This book is hugely relate-able as a reader.

An enjoyable collection of essays on a variety of topics, most of which tie back to reading and the love of it all.

While the essays were enjoyable, they conveyed relatable topics, however, this is not a book that I will think about again. Although, I did love the idea of just reading with my future significant other.

To begin with, this is absolutely not the sort of book that I would gravitate towards on my own. While I love reading, I tend to stay away from books about reading-not as a rule, just as a matter of preference.

I found the first essay about her and her husband to be quite poetic and enjoyable. Many pages later, I found the essay about reading aloud to each other also quite enjoyable.

Between those chapters, I found this book to be quite...unejoyable. This book is written for a person who loves to devour books and words, not just a person who likes books and likes to read. The author mentions reading a car manual from front to back. She also goes on to describe her family's love of correcting grammatical errors in everything they read. To think that it is somehow wonderful to find joy in perceived superiority that has only been gained from a place of privilege is really quite unbearable to me. I cannot imagine how this author would function on social media. Actually—I can. I can very clearly see this author engaging in a Facebook debate and thinking it is a valid debate point to say that their competitor used “you're” incorrectly and is somehow wrong solely for that reason.

If you identify as a physical book-obsessed, grammar-worshipping, bibliophile, this book is probably for you. As someone who mostly loves books for the stories they tell, this book was not for me.

I adore this book and have had it in paper for years. I picked up the audio on sale sometime last year (2 years ago?) and finally listened to it. Great narrator and it's just as good as I remembered. I think that's because I strongly resemble the author although my choice of genre/subject (with the exception of a shared obsession of Arctic/Antarctic exploration) is quite different. :)

This is truly literary candy. It was a joy to read and I had to ration it so I didn't devour it too quickly (the only other book I've had to do this with was a tree grows in Brooklyn so this is truly an honor). This is the first and only book I've found myself compulsively annotating mainly for vocabulary (also an honor).