(Divine Diptych collaboration between Elle Moss and Marico Fayre)
It has been almost a year to the day since I first discovered the work of Anne Fadiman via this slim volume of book-related essays, a recommendation in one of Nick Hornby’s excellent Believer Magazine essay collections. Given my predilection for cyclical reading, it perhaps shouldn’t be surprising that, without consciously doing so, I found myself desiring to read this again during this time of year.
Having closed the page on the same library-borrowed copy of the book, I found myself thinking a great deal about why I am so drawn to Fadiman’s thoughts on the pleasures of being a book lover. It certainly is not because we agree on everything, because we do not, nor is it because of a shared intelligence, because I humbly consider Anne Fadiman in an entirely different intellectual stratosphere than the one that I occupy. I believe it is because Anne Fadiman makes me want to be a better reader. Not in the sense of reading better books, but in the sense of encouraging me to be more cognizant of all the many pleasures of being a bibliophile and to savor those pleasures.
Reading her essays also makes me long for many more bookshelves in my modest home.
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader ~Anne Fadiman
–1998, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
–162 pages
–4.5/5 stars (re-read, rating still holds true)
You can trust me on this: if you are an avid reader, Anne Fadiman is a kindred spirit, and one you should get to know. In the later part of the book she describes her husband’s gift for her 42nd birthday: a surprise trip to a heretofore unexplored used bookstore in a small town in New York. When they emerge 7 hours later carrying 19 pounds of books (she weighed them), you cannot help but realize that this couple gets it. They connect in a way that only a true book-loving couple can. My wife is a more prolific reader than I am, although she doesn’t have the ‘possession mania’ that I have for books. But in reading these essays a second time, I was reminded of how precious that part of our relationship is and how fortunate I am to have that connection with my spouse.
While Anne Fadiman would certainly not share my love of genre literature, I am most certain that we share a bond of kinship that would find her giving me a knowing look were I to be sitting across a table from her explaining how, despite owning several copies of the book, I have never been able to bring myself to read any copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula but the cheap paperback copy I picked up 20 years ago in a dinky mall bookstore. Or how, when Chris lost a lot of his books to Hurricane Katrina, I couldn’t resist offering him my like-new trade paperback boxed set of Tolkien books, especially given the fact that I also had hardback copies and wanted to share–but then found myself going out and buying him that identical boxed set new because my first ever reading of Tolkien was with those paperback copies and I didn’t have the heart to sever the bond I felt to them. (I realize just how petty that last example may read. My only defense is the hope that many of understand exactly what I mean. And I did tell Chris this story right when it happened. 🙂 )
Whether discussing her Odd Shelf–a concept that I cannot help but want to duplicate in my own home–, waxing eloquent about her favorite writing pen, or discussing the two schools of thought on how books as objects should be treated, Anne Fadiman writes in a concise, conversational and passionate manner that compels you to go on to the next essay. I am convinced that a re-read of her other essay collection, At Small, At Large, is on my reading horizon.
Ex Libris is filled with quotable passages. I reviewed it back in April last year and you can find some of those passages, and my thoughts at the time, here. I strongly encourage you to check out her work. I promise that it will spark internal conversations, if not dialogue among those around you who share your affinity for books and reading. I enjoyed it every bit as much the second time around.
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This book is a selection for the 2010 Support Your Local Library Challenge.
This book sounds just as interesting today as it did last year when you reviewed. I really need to see if my library has it. You mention Nick Hornby in your original review and I’ve just been dying to read another of his books as well. His latest work ” Juliet, Naked ” keeps trying to lure me in every time I visit my local library. Each time I can feel my resistance wearing down more and more to it’s siren calls. I know I will bend to it’s will soon. 🙂
It’s funny you mention that LOTR story with Chris because I had a similar experience with my LOTR books a few years back but I went down a different path that worked for me and please don’t take this as a stab at you at all. You know me and will realize this is NOT a dig at you but just my story.
A year or so after 9/11 my father, who is a Vietnam Veteran, was working on sending packages overseas to soliders. As we were reviewing items on a list of donation items requested I noticed the line BOOKS. I thought books. I love books. That is something I could share that for me had a personnel connection other than just the normal donation items. As I reviewed my book collection I came across the 3 original LOTR books I had read in the 7th/8th grade over 20 years earlier. I had always kept them since they were my gateway into my love of fantasy reading along with The Hobbit. I decided to donate those exact copies. It may sound odd but in my heart it means so much to me that men and women were half way around the world putting there lives on the line to protect my family that by giving them these books I was able to say thank you to them from me in my own way with this kind of gift. My hope is that someone else was touched by reading them the way I was touched by reading them all those many years ago. A big part of who I am today is because of my love of reading and those LOTR books were a major corner stone in that. I wanted to share those magical books with someone else as a gift and a thank you.
So you’re saying I’m selfish then, eh?
Ha! Just kidding. I can certainly see why you did just that and I too have given away things, including books, that were very precious to me because it just seemed like the right thing to do. In this instance I was fortunately at a place where I could be a blessing to Chris AND still keep my emotional connection to these books.
What you describe is also one of the reasons why I like to pick up used copies of older science fiction books. I love the idea that they’ve been read and hopefully loved by others before me. I like thinking of the story they may hold, as those books that you sent over had their own story.
I’m so glad that Nick Hornby has went back to doing his Believer column. It will probably be awhile before he has enough backlogged to do another book, but I look forward to that day. I picked up a copy of Slam at the library the other day. I remember you talking about it back when you listened to it on audio. Juliet, Naked sounds great as well.
Yeah ! You’re a selfish bastard ! 😉
You’ll have to let me know what you think of Slam. I’ll be curious to hear what you think of it in comparison to my audio book experience with it. It still floats into my thoughts from time to time. I really liked it a lot and at the same time it completely scared the crap out of me as a parent with a teenager. Way to go Nick Hornby !!! 🙂
My library has a copy of Ex-libris that I’m going to snag this afternoon. I’m looking forward to it.
I’ve also just started The Weed that Strings the Hand man’s bag. It just came in at the library for me yesterday.
Cool! I started Weed myself and need to get back to it. I’ve been on this nonfiction kick lately with Seth Godin and others. Need to mix in a little fiction again. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read thus far.
I think you’ll enjoy Ex Libris. I didn’t love every chapter, and there were parts I definitely disagreed with, but I found that as much fun, because it made me think, as the chapters where I was completely agreeing with her.
Plus its a nice short read.
As you say, it’ll probably be a while until Nick Hornby’s next essay collection is out, and I need something to keep me busy until then 😉 Betwen Anne Fadiman and Anna Quindlen, I think I know where to turn.
PS: Slam is so good! One of the most interesting things about it is that it can in fact be described as genre literature. But I shall say no more 😛
Love that diptych. I have been doing a weekly diptych with a friend of mine,and posting it to my photo blog. So, I am always looking for new themes and ideas. This diptych gave me an idea of a way to add a twist to book photos. Very cool.
Ex-libris sounds good. I think this is one I really ought read at some point very soon. I really should see if I can obtain it from the library. I am really trying to tone down my need for buying books. 🙂
Ibeeg: Yes, the diptych gave me some ideas as well. I’ve seen several in that series and this one is one of my favorites.
You have my wholehearted support in wanting to use the library more and cut back on spending on books. It is fun to add to ones own personal library, but these days it has to be tempered with financial wisdom. I also think it is important to support the library in these uncertain economic times so that we don’t somehow lose this important resource.
Nymeth: I’m looking forward to reading Slam. Fadiman and Quindlen are really good choices to feed that essay urge. Its possible I heard of both of them through Hornby. I’ll be tempted to go to my local bookstore to read his articles in the Believer magazine whenever they come out. I don’t want to buy the magazine, but am not sure I can wait until the book comes out some day.
I know precisely what you mean, Carl, when you speak of the strange passion that can arise between books and reading when they become objects invested with memories. I have a small collection of novels I inherited from my dad that are worn, some taped up, pages yellowed, and rich with memories of my reading them as a child. Macroscope by Piers Anthony, The Sunbird by Wilbur Smith, an early edition of the Gormenghast novels, printed in delicate pastel green with Peake’s own illustrations on the cover, and a handful of others. While I have newer editions of them all, I’m simply too attached to these old relics to ever consider giving them up, or attaching any importance to their newer versions.
Phil: Anne talks about this some too, as her and her brother inherited her father’s books when he passed away. I have a small handful of books that were my grandfathers when he was young that I’m grateful to have: Tom Strong adventures. And some older books that I believe might have been my dads when he was young, or maybe they were something that my brother and I just had. And of course there are books that I am just super attached to because they were my first experience with different authors.
I am torn between being generous & possessive. I don’t have much space at home, so I am used now to simply give away what I will not re-read again. Though I can understand the instinct to keep all books as mementos of a life journey & why not surround yourself with these amazing bits of culture?
Harry: I’m somewhere in between as well. I sold a lot of books over the last year to help pay off debt and while sometimes it was a painful decision I ultimately felt great about it. And if the right circumstances came along where I felt like it was the best thing to do to give away my Tolkien or Dracula copy I’m sure I would do it. But I haven’t been in that place, and I do want to be balanced and keep some of my own personal history around me, especially with books that I will read again and again.
I have been SO busy, I haven’t had a moment to stop by, (I’ll get to that in a moment) and when I do, look what I’ve missed!
So Monday was Wife’s birthday (many thanks to you who left best wishes on my blog) , and that was also the day an entire sheet of plywood filled with nails from which hung all the tools of the garage (shovels, saws, clamps, rakes, brooms, loppers, tire gauge, hammers… you get the idea. All that stuff is heavy when combined, and apparently the earthquake we had (the one in northern Mexico which was strongly felt here in SoCal) jiggled the screws holding the nailer strips and over a couple of weeks the thing began to make a slow exit from the wall. It was topped with a long deep shelf filled with boxes and other things. It came down. So most of Monday was spent celebrating the Wife’s birthday and re-engineering the thing, then today, rebuilding the whole thing including a dead lift of the (empty) sheet of plywood with shelf back into position. Whew. It’ snow screwed and nailed and will never come down…
Anyway. The book. I’ve scanned the shelves and don’t see it but I know it’s here. I’ve read it a couple of times and will read it again. I understand your desire to keep books you have a connection to, and to have more shelves (nobody doesn’t need more shelves). I don’t agree with everything she says but much of it is spot on. Great book, great choice for a post.
I have only a few of my mother’s books, none of my grandparents. My father and his side of the family were not readers, feeling it was a frivolous activity. My mother and her side of the family loved to read and loved books. All but a handful of the things I have here are books I bought or were gifts. I do give a lot of books away, to the library, through bookswap, as gifts, etc. but it’s never easy.
Finished Enchanted Night last evening, and my review is up.
Richard: I am so sorry! That doesn’t sound like a fun project at all, even less so given that it was your wife’s birthday and was her day to be pampered, not seeing you having to do sudden ‘honey-do’ projects! Glad it didn’t happen in such a way that anyone was injured.
And thanks Richard, I agree that it is a really great book.
Much of my family are not readers either. My mom reads but never was one to buy a lot of books and always used the library more. Which was a good thing because it meant trips to the library as a kid, which are some of my favorite memories.
Just read your Enchanted Night review, so glad you enjoyed it and weren’t wildly disappointed after Chris and I hyped it.
Thanks for reminding me about this book. The only Fadiman I’ve never ready is The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down which was probably my favorite book last year. I’d love to read what she has to say about reading.
Kim: Just read the synopsis of The Spirit Catches You…whoa, that sounds like a tragic story, but an interesting one as well. It would be really interesting to experience Fadiman’s voice writing this kind of story vs. the reading of her work that I’ve done, which is entirely in essays about reading and/or other life issues.
Oh, I love love love this collection. (And I enjoyed her more recent one a lot as well, though I was a bit nervous because it wasn’t so overtly bookish.) I also liked Wendy Lesser’s Nothing Remains the Same: Rereading and Remembering; ironically I enjoyed it more when I reread it than I did at first (though it still didn’t command the same intense fondness that Fadmiman’s essays do for me). But books about books: hard not to be fond of them, at least a little.
Buried: Have you read the three Nick Hornby collections that gather his book essays from The Believer magazine? They are very good. Less variety than Fadiman’s work but still very good. I’ll look into the Lesser book, I had not heard of that one.
Man I’ve been wanting to read this one for such a long time. She sounds like one that we can all relate to. You know, I cherish those copies of LOTR so much because of the story and the sentiment behind them Carl. That you went out and got them for me because you couldn’t part with your own. Because I can relate with that SO SO much!!! And if you would’ve sent me your own, I would’ve sent them right back to you! Not to mention, you didn’t have to do that at all. It was such an act of kindness. They’re some of my most beloved books that I own. I just love that set. My example is my copy of American Gods. It’s nothing special..it’s the Mass Market Paperback version and the spine is creased and everything, but I could never even lend it out to anyone. In fact, I’ve gone and bought nice trade paperback versions to give to people who said they wanted to read it just because I can’t part with my MMP version that I originally read :p
Chris: I knew you understood then and am so glad you still understand now. We’ve all given gifts to people before, some more special than others, but LOTR means so much to me that I consider being able to do that for you one of my most special memories. Not that I wanted to have you go through that loss, but I consider it a real honor to be able to have helped in some small way.
You would love this book Chris. You need to snag a copy from your library and check it out. And I obviously need to buy myself a copy at some point. Wish I’d run across it at half price or something. This is one of those books I need to get a used copy of so that I can write all over it!
Yes, thanks, Carl: I’ve read two and have one “saved”. Another I quite enjoyed was Maureen Corrigan’s Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading, but I think part of the reason I especially enjoyed it was overlap between her reading preferences and mine, so how much you might enjoy that one could vary.
I loved this book too, although I haven’t read anything else written by Fadiman. Must check them out. I also have Corrigan’s Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading. There’s just something about books about books that keeps me wanting to read more!
Buried: I will add that one to my library queue and give it a try.
Sakura: I know exactly how you feel. I picked up Fadiman’s At Large and At Small last night and started giving it a re-read. Loving it every bit as much the second time around.