After searching for half an hour for this book about books in my local library, I found it in a section labelled “computers”. The label seemed quite old and it was possible that the computers category was a broad and forgotten term for books surrendered to a miscellaneous shelf. Finding this treasure on this shelf, instead of the literature or non-fiction section, in a vessel that exists for the very things it celebrates, added to the charm of the book and has made me fall in love with it a little more.
Ex Libris is a collection of personal essays written by Anne Fadiman over the course of her adult life which express her lifelong obsession with books.
If you are a self-proclaimed bibliophile, Ex Libris is your perfect starting manual.
A love of books is often a solitary, and in my experience, an entirely personal affair: bookworms are often located in quiet corners of the globe, cuddled up in armchairs, with the paraphernalia of their choice. We have habits and predilections which to the outsider may seem eccentric and baffling. We have devoted years of our lives, squares of floor space, and available furniture, to a hunger which will never be satiated. In Ex Libris Anne Fadiman documents some of our behaviours to further our knowledge of our condition.
For instance, I have often questioned my recently installed pirate shelf as a slightly mad pursuit, yet I now know shelves like mine exist in bookcases across the world - in fact Anne Fadiman reveals she has her own, in her third essay titled “My Odd Shelf”. Fadiman’s shelf, unlike mine, is devoted to polar expedition. “My interest is a lonely one” she explains, “I cannot trot it out at cocktail parties”. She does however divulge it to us here, in a perfect spiel on Scott and Norse mythology. Her husband, she also confides, is a “rainforest man himself”.
It is difficult not be in awe of Fadiman, who is now one of my fantasy dinner party guests. She grew up in a household of bibliomaniacs - her father and mother were both writers. In “The Joy of Sesquipedalians” she remembers how the Fadimans would play the US equivalent of University Challenge and actually get most of the questions right among them. Their vast knowledge of language however can never be completed. She relates how they often call each other up when they discover new words. This is the bit I relished. Bookworms like to collect and hoard words; some of us have notebooks full of gems we have plucked out of pages over the years. And the Fadimans are no different.
I feel after reading Ex Libris I want to be a better reader and love books more, if that is possible. Now thanks to Anne Fadiman, second hand bookstores have a new significance to me. I spent an hour in one in Stamford recently, pouring over handwritten inscriptions on the flyleaves of pre-loved volumes. I also know more about my condition - in a trip to Budapest, I took my copy of Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor, this I now know is termed “You are there reading”, and I only wish my bank account would allow more of it.
I wish I didn’t have to give this book back to the library and I have wrestled with the idea of buying it. However, as I look at the stamped dates, dating back to 20 Mar 2010, I am reminded that many fellow bookworms have probably gone through the same dilemma and have finally let it return to the rightful place. I will do the same, however, the next borrower may find a hidden note from a fellow bibliophile.
