The Pirate Review - Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

This is a must-have book for all compulsive readers

Our little house is piled high with books of all types and descriptions: leatherbound classics, paperback SF pulp novels, beautifully illustrated children's books, religious tomes, and a massive unabridged dictionary that looks like something Col. Mustard might use, in a pinch, as a murder weapon. Most of these are freely loaned to friends; some only go out to a select few. Only a handful of books in our household are "chained."

What do I mean by a chained book? Before the invention of the printing press, books were hand-bound and hand-copied. These tomes were so rare and precious and difficult to replace that they were often chained to the shelf or podium where they rested, the better to keep thieves at bay. A book in our library is designated "chained" when we consider it so essential that it never leaves the house—not even with a close friend. It's not really a question of distrust; it's just that, to a bibliophile, the book is of a quality that makes the temptation to steal it well-nigh irresistible.

If you want to read my copy of Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman, for instance, you're perfectly free to take a seat on the overstuffed couch and read for as long as you like. You may write down the name, author and ISBN. And when you are done, it had better go back on the shelf.

All those with an unabashed love of books—the ones who cringe or stare blindly when others suggest they "de-junk" their houses by getting rid of the paperbacks—will find a kindred spirit in Ms. Fadiman. In her preface, she expresses the experience of being so engrossed in a good book that you lose track of the world around you, and literally must be "wakened" out of the trance—an experience I've had numerous times. She admits being so desperate for reading material that, in a pinch, she'll read her Toyota Corolla manual or a set of Water Pik instructions—another shared experience for compulsive readers. Her description of the Fadiman family and its passion for trivia competitions is eerily reminiscent of my brothers and me around the breakfast table, testing each other out of the family encyclopedia on useless items like the world's largest wheat-producing countries. In the chapter where she waxes eloquent on the obsessive desire to correct a misspelled word or misplaced apostrophe in print, I see a reflection of the "blessed rage for order" that is every proofreader's compulsion. In short, Fadiman's essays can often be startlingly familiar, as she describes in consummate detail experiences many compulsive book-lovers have shared.

If you come across an unfamiliar word with a sense of delight, don't miss the chapter titled "The Joy of Sesquipedalians," in which the meanings of 22 unusual words are revealed. If reading a book in which the characters are starving has ever compelled you to eat something, savor "The Literary Glutton." In fact, the entire book is reminiscent of a small box of chocolate truffles—beautifully packaged, with each essay self-contained and at least theoretically capable of being read one at a time, but so perfectly delicious that you may end up finishing the whole thing in one sitting.

Although she's nearly a kindred spirit, Ms. Fadiman and I don't always see eye to eye—I'm sure we'd have the occasional tiff on the subjects of religion, gender politics in writing, and the care of loved books, for instance—but I accept these differences because she manages to entertain and illuminate even while expressing ideas I don't share. She is eloquent and thoughtful in the expression of her preferences and dislikes, so that even those who disagree can still understand.

If you're looking for a book on the art and passion of literacy, choose this over the inferior but more well-known Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. Take Ex Libris home instead, read it, cherish it. Then chain it.