Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader - Tapa dura

Anne Fadiman is the sort of person who learned about sex from her father's copy of Fanny Hill, and who once found herself poring over a 1974 Toyota Corolla manual because it was the only thing in her apartment that she had not read at least twice. EX LIBRIS recounts a lifelong obsession with books and language. Writing with humour and erudition she moves easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. 'Of all addictions, bibliophilia is the noblest and most dangerous: in Anne Fadiman, the disease has found amost engaging chronicler and analyst. EX LIBRIS will provide enjoyable moments of recognition for all book obsessives' - Alain de Botton

Anne Fadiman is editor of The American Scholar and an award-winning journalist. Her first book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down won the US National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction. She lives in New York City.