About this title: Entertaining essays by Anne Fadiman about the joys of books and reading. Some of the joys are rather curious ones, but Fadiman writes about them with humor and self-deprecation, and always with grace and style.
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Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Edition: 1st
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date Published: 2000-11-25
ISBN-13:9780374527228ISBN:0374527229
Description: Like New. May be shiny, in some instances dust jackets are not included, no missing pages, no damage to binding, may have a remainder mark. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date Published: 2000-11-25
ISBN-13:9780374527228ISBN:0374527229
Description: New. New-Fast shipping from trusted wholesaler with many exclusive publisher contracts. May have slight edge wear from being on the shelf. May have remainder mark. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date Published: 2000-11-25
ISBN-13:9780140283709ISBN:0140283706
Description: Good. Save some $$$. Perfectly Good Reading Copy. Shelfwear from storage in box with other books. Small stain on bottom of front cover. Ex Libris. Great Copy. Ships Lightning Fast. read more
Edition: Reprint.
Binding: Wraps
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux, NY
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780374527228ISBN:0374527229
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. NF(corner creased, sm. stain, dated pon, v. sm. unobtrusive ink corrections) Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 162 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: 1st
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date Published: 11/25/2000
ISBN-13:9780374527228ISBN:0374527229
Description: New. 0374527229 Brand New Book With Remainder Mark. May Have Slight Shelf Wear. In-Stock Now For Immediate Secure Packaging & Delivery wear on DJ. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date Published: 1998-10-31
ISBN-13:9780374148607ISBN:0374148600
Description: Very Good. Name written inside cover. Dust jacket shows some shelf wear. No highlighting or underlining. You're gonna love this book! read more
Description: Like New. Trade paperback. Like new; no internal markings; has lost its "Brand New" shine but no obvious defects. Books-on-Books 92509. No remainder mark. In sealed plastic protection. 2000. Trade paperback. read more
Edition: 1st thus printing
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, NY
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780374527228ISBN:0374527229
Description: Very Good. No Jacket as Issued. Green and yellow illustrated cover with light edge wear, faint soiling, NO creases. Text clean, binding solid and square. 162 pages. Glued binding, 19 cm, 5 oz. read more
"This is a collection of essays first published in Civilization, the magazine of the Library of Congress, which is where I first read many of them. These essays were written by, for, and about booklovers. My favorites include "Never Do That to a Book" where the author discusses two different ways to love a book - "courtly love" in which the reader tries to keep the book in as pristine a state as possible vs. "carnal love" in which the reader does not care a bit about the appearances of a book, leading to dog-ears, comments in the margin etc. Another favorite is "Marrying Libraries" in which the author and her husband merge their book collections, leading to discussions on how to order different authors on a bookshelf, and how to order books by a single author. Anne Fadimans says that, when she insisted on chronological orders for Shakespeare plays, despite her husband George's objection that nobody knows for sure when Shakespeare wrote his plays, was one of the few times George seriously contemplated divorce."
"This book was WAAY too much fun. Anne Fadiman is Clifton Fadiman's daughter, and she has collected this book of essays about book-love. She is funny and frank and the book is a delight. There are essays on merging her library with her husband's, on the delight of finding long, delicious words, on sonnets, on "carnal-love" book lovers versus "courtly-love" book lovers (for the record, I'm in the carnal-love category--my books know they are loved), ink pens, flyleaf inscriptions, the compulsive editing of the errors around us :-) , catalogs, even plagiarism. All are delightful. I recognized myself so often and kept reading parts to my dh, who doesn't always "get" it. It is so reassuring to read books by people as compulsive as I am about books, since in my "real life" I've often felt like the only book nut. I do have some delightful online friends who are fellow nuts, but most of the people in my real life have been perplexed by me since I was about 3. :-)"
"A delightful volume - for the unashamed book lover !! And makes a charming gift for a friend. This is the sort of book that every book lover, who feels that they could never write like a "real author", realises that this is the book that they would have written - if only they could !!"
"I enjoyed this book, but perhaps not nearly as much as some of my friends seem to have. It's always nice to read something that makes me feel that someone out there is like me and/or my family -- that we're not completely crazy! ;)
So reading about another kid who was taught NOT to say "the hoi polloi", someone else who can't help but proofread menus, who is an obsessive book collector -- these are cool.
However. Anne Fadiman has an annoying to tendency to assume that her delineations are universal. That all book-lovers are either carnal or courtly, with nothing in between. That science fiction is not real literature. Etc., etc.
So I very much enjoyed the essays . . . except when I was rolling my eyes or gritting my teeth. Still, those moments were relatively few. Definitely worth the read."
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