Books like Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris is a collection of eighteen essays that trace a lifelong love affair with books and language. Drawing on her own childhood experiences—tumbling through her father’s twenty‑two‑volume set of Trollope and merging collections with her husband—Fadiman explores the intimacy of flyleaf inscriptions, the compulsive pleasure of proofreading, the allure of long words, and the joy of reading aloud. With elegant storytelling, she weaves anecdotes about literary figures such as Coleridge and Orwell into reflections on how the books she loves become chapters of her own life story.
First publish date: 1998
Genre: Memoir/Personal Memoir
Authors: Anne Fadiman
★
★
★
★
★
4.2 (6 community ratings)
How are these books recommended?
The books recommended for Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman are shaped by reader interaction. Votes on how closely books relate, user ratings, and community comments all help refine these recommendations and highlight books readers genuinely find similar in theme, ideas, and overall reading experience.
Have you read any of these books?
Your votes, ratings, and comments help improve recommendations and make it easier
for other readers to discover books they’ll enjoy.
Books similar to Ex Libris (16 similar books)
During World War II, a foster girl in Nazi Germany steals books to share with neighbors and a hidden Jewish man, proving literature’s power to nourish the soul amid darkness.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
In January 1946, London novelist Juliet Ashton receives a mysterious letter from a Guernsey native, opening a lively epistolary journey that reveals the island’s quirky community, wartime struggles and a beloved book club born of curfew-breaking escapades.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
In Tehran, Azar Nafisi secretly hires seven female students each week to read banned Western classics, revealing the personal and political struggles of women under Iran’s revolutionary regime.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Meet Simon Garfield’s witty, insightful guide to the world of fonts – a cultural history that explains how type shapes our lives from ancient scripts to modern digital screens.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A poignant story of a mother and son's book club journey as she faces pancreatic cancer.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Michael Chabon’s linked essays champion the joy of reading and writing, celebrating everything from ghost stories to comic books, Sherlock Holmes to Cormac McCarthy, and urging a return to storytelling’s thrilling roots.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A witty memoir of Shaun Bythell’s years running The Bookshop, Scotland’s largest second‑hand bookseller, filled with quirky staff, eccentric customers and surreal book‑hunting adventures.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A compelling tale of resilience, imagination, and the power of storytelling through the eyes of a young orphan from a war-torn island and his new found love of reading, as he discovers the magic of adventure and the strength of the human spirit.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Ann Patchett's essays explore life's moments of enchantment and universal truths.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
In the three decades that Nobel prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk has devoted himself to writing fiction, he has also produced scores of witty, moving, and provocative essays and articles. He engages the work of Nabokov, Kundera, Rushdie, and Vargas Llosa, among others, and he discusses his own books and writing process. We also learn how he lives, as he recounts his successful struggle to quit smoking, describes his relationship with his daughter, and reflects on the controversy he has attracted in recent years. Here is a thoughtful compilation of a brilliant novelist's best nonfiction, offering different perspectives on his lifelong obsessions with loneliness, contentment, and the books and cities that have shaped his experience.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A collection of essays by a National Book Critics Circle finalist, focusing on various subjects over a 25-year period and reflecting on jazz, British-dole queue, haute couture, and hotel sex.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Chronicles the Los Angeles Public Library fire and its aftermath and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the actor long suspected of setting the fire, showcases the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives, and delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Some Other Similar Books
A Book of Memories by Peter OrnerAn Unlikely Book Club by Deborah Rodriguez
Have a similar book in mind? Let others know!
Please login to submit books!