• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

Ex Libris / Anne Fadiman

ladyjune98

ladyjune98

New Member
Has anyone read Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman? I absolutely adored it. It's the ultimate book for book lovers, a collection of personal essays. It makes you feel less extreme--no one could ever be as bad as the author and her family when it comes to caring about books.

I'm curious to know what other people think and if anyone has read her other book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, about some kind of medical story. Is it any good? I recently received it as a gift and want to know how far up to move it on my queue of books to read.
 
YES! I loved Ex Libris - every few paragraphs it was like, "WOW, someone else does that too!"

Haven't read her other one, though. It was very well received when it came out.

I've always meant to look into her father's (Clifton Fadiman's) literary criticism, but haven't done it yet.
 
I haven't read Ex Libris, but I would imagine that if you liked it, you would also like Nicholas Basbanes' A Gentle Madness. It's a look at bibliomania from the outside. I think that my next read will probably be A Pound of Paper, for what that's worth.
 
Ex Libris is one of my all-time favourite reads. Laughed and chuckled my way through it. Funes, A Gentle Madness looks interesting and I'll add it to my list of books to keep an eye out for.

The Sprit Catches You and You Fall Down is a totally different kind of book. Looks interesting if you like real-life medical puzzles, treatment and culture-clash.
 
Ell said:
Ex Libris is one of my all-time favourite reads. Laughed and chuckled my way through it. Funes, A Gentle Madness looks interesting and I'll add it to my list of books to keep an eye out for.

The Sprit Catches You and You Fall Down is a totally different kind of book. Looks interesting if you like real-life medical puzzles, treatment and culture-clash.
Click to expand...

Follow your step, and gonna check this author!

By the way, dear lady, glad to see you're around here :) .
 
I have to tell you that A Gentle Madness isn't really a first-hand account written by a bibliophile, though Basbanes is definitely a "book-person". It is more a semi-detached look at the building of some of the great private and public collections, and the personal urges which drove them. It also shows the reader the "dark side" of bibliomania, containing the story of Stephen Blumberg, a bibliokleptomaniac. In other words, it is really more about peoples' obsession with books than about books themselves, though necessarily the two go hand in hand.
In any event, it really is a fabulous book.
 
Hi, funes,

I don't know why. But I tend to turn to your posts to add more books to my reading list. Very appreciate your opinion and information about books! :)
 
watercrystal said:
By the way, dear lady, glad to see you're around here :) .
Click to expand...
Glad to see you too! W-Crystal, I think you'd really like Ex Libris.
 
Hi, funes,

I don't know why. But I tend to turn to your posts to add more books to my reading list. Very appreciate your opinion and information about books!
Click to expand...

I'm glad to be of service, and thank you for the kind words.
 
Someone gave me the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down and I'm starting it today. When I did a search to see if anyone else here had read it, I found this thread and I'm thinking that Ex Libris sounds really good, perhaps more my type of book but after being gifted this book and having 2 really close friends that have good taste recommend it I'm starting it with high hopes :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top