Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman

"Ex Libris proporcionará momentos placenteros que los adictos a los libros reconocerán." Alain de Botton Como ocurre con muchos lectores voraces, para Anne Fadiman los libros que ha leído se han convertido en otros tantos capítulos de su historia personal. Los dieciocho capítulos que componen este volumen dan cuenta de una relación apasionada con los libros y con el lenguaje. Ex Libris es un libro que trata de otros libros: de cómo comprarlos, de dónde y cómo leerlos, de cómo tratarlos. Con una prosa llena de encanto, Fadiman pasa con soltura de las anécdotas acerca de personajes como Coleridge u Orwell a divertidas historias de su familia. Dado que de pequeña jugaba a construcciones con los volúmenes de la biblioteca paterna ("Mis castillos ancestrales") y que solo se consideró verdaderamente ligada por el vínculo matrimonial cuando su marido y ella consiguieron por fin idear un sistema para unir sus respectivas bibliotecas ("Matrimonio de bibliotecas"), la autora es sin duda la persona más indicada para hablar sobre el arte de las dedicatorias, los perversos placeres de la búsqueda de erratas, los encantos de las palabras largas y las satisfacciones de la lectura en voz alta. Una lectura imprescindible para los que aman los libros, para los que aman las palabras y, sobre todo, una lectura que nos hará comprender que muchas otras personas comparten esta pasión tan particular.

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.

Anne Fadiman grew up in a
home I would have loved to
grow up in, a home
filled with books and
book lovers and the love
of learning.

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.