Is this brand of toaster better than that brand of toaster? At $24.95, is this toaster a best buy? There is nothing about how I may feel about my toaster ten years hence, and nothing about the tender feelings I may yet harbor for my old toaster. “I began to write Ex Libris when it occurred to me how curious it was that books are so often written about as if they were toasters. The Dirt, this book had me from the Preface: It was all quite picturesque and seemed tailor made for this kind bibliophilistic reverie. I had the pleasure of reading almost the whole of Ex Libris while sitting out on my deck this past Saturday afternoon, under partly sunny skies, while blossoms rained gently down from the trees in my yard. But that image quickly fades as her essays ,manage to be every bit as accessible, because they cover a range of book related subjects echo the discussions had on book blogs the world over. At first glance, Anne Fadiman’s essays seem to come off as more high-brow.

One is likely to find more words and references that need to be looked up in Ex Libris than in one of the three collections of Hornby essays. Anne Fadiman is intelligent as well, but her writing seems to sit at a slightly different level. Nick Hornby is an obviously intelligent man who manages to write in an intelligent yet conversational style that embraces readers of all levels. While the two have many similarities (in fact some of the subject matter in Housekeeping and Ex Libris actually mirrored each other), they also have some distinct differences. Reading Hornby and Fadiman back-to-back was an interesting experience.

Like Hornby, Fadiman has an obvious love of the printed word which suffuses her essays with a warm glow. He mentions the book favorably in The Polysyllabic Spree.

It is unlikely, but not impossible, that this book would have ended up in my hands if it were not for the man dominating my reading of late, Nick Hornby. “I have never been able to resist a book about books.” Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader ~Anne Fadiman

Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman