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"Fadiman, Anne - Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader - PTN"
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	Rating: none Quantity in Basket:none Code: 0374527229PTN Price:$8.25
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"Paperback. New. List $ 11. [Farrar, Straus and Giroux] 176 pages. From the Publisher For Anne Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. As someone who played at blocks with her father's twenty-two-volume set of Trollope (""My Ancestral Castles"") and who only really considered herself married when she and her husband had merged collections (""Marrying Libraries""), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of inscriptions, the perverse pleasures of compulsive proofreading, the allure of long words, and the satisfactions of reading aloud. There is even a foray into pure literary gluttony-Charles Lamb liked buttered muffin crumbs between the leaves, and Fadiman knows of more than one reader who literally consumes page corners. Perfectly balanced between humor and erudition, Ex Libris establishes Fadiman as one of our finest contemporary essayists. Anne Fadiman is the editor of The American Scholar. Recipient of a National Magazine Award for Reporting, she has written for Civilization, Harper's, Life, and The New York Times, among other publications. She lives in New York City. * ""A terrifically entertaining collection of personal essays about books . . . heartening, tender, wise, and hilarious."" (Patsy Baudoin, The Boston Book * ) * ""A smart little book that one can happily welcome into the family and allow to start growing old."" (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times) "

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