Rating: 
Summary: Simply stunning.
Review: This is a wonderful little volume on reading and books. Fadiman is anything but pretentious. She is an honest bibliophile, as few people are and has a gourmet knack for a good turn of phrase. I loved the book. I have bought many copies and have been gifting them to friends who share my secret obsession with the well-written word. Here's hoping that we see many more from Anne Fadiman.
Rating:
Summary: Not rich, not perfect, loved the book
Review: I loved this book. It was given to me by my grandfather, a book-lover himself who never went to college and sold trucks for most of his life, but could probably tromp me in any vocabulary contest. If you love books, if you've ever found yourself reading the back of a cereal box more than once because it's the only thing around, if you nudge your spouse out of a sound (oh, were you asleep?) sleep to share details of the children's crusade at 1 am, if you know where every ding and scratch on your copy of Middlemarch came from, but cannot at times remember your college roommate's name, this is a book you must read. Bring a good 1906 dictionary or your Liddell & Scott, and settle down for a very good time.
Rating: 
Summary: "WE ARE NOT ALONE" (but "THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE")
Review: I agree with the comments of "Am I alone?". And you are not, though it's scary to think what the Fadimans might become if ever we were to contact aliens & have strange dictionaries dropped in our laps..... I was a classmate of Anne's in her golden childhood, and she was just that kind of paradox: someone easier to love than to like, at times. Coming from a huge manse in Bel Air roughly the size of Windsor (hence, "My Ancestral Castles") she may have fallen early on for the "sizzle" more than the steak. Obviously, there's hope: her other book "The Spirit Catches You..." has a lot of good stuff in the pages, and she always was very clever. Very often too clever for her own good. My good wish for her, as ever, is that she forget about all that has been handed down to her from literary High Places, and consider what she's been given from Above. (Amen.)
Rating: 
Summary: Am I alone?
Review: The first few essays were pure ambrosia. I read them eagerly - in love with words and reading, the tangibility of books, the smell of print, etc. I felt inspired to not just read, but PURCHASE mounds upon mounds of books. I envied Ms. Fadiman's knowing so many people who felt the same. But after a while, can't quite say when, Fadiman began to get on my nerves. She's a little pretentious. Whenever she quotes a friend saying something, it sounds stilted, more as if it were being written - if her pals wrote their responses, fine - just write, "Kim wrote" - if everybody she knows TALKS like this, well I'm just a big fat idiot. I had to consult my dictionary more times per page than I recall doing so while reading *Beloved*. While I'm not one to begrudge someone an extensive, precise vocabulary, I found the overall effect to be somewhat alienating. She gave me a new appreciation for polar expeditions, I'll give her that. I am glad that I read the book, it's just that her whole "mywonderfulhusbandandIliveinaloftinNYC andwereadoutloudtoeachotherisn'tthatsexy? aren'twegreatandinlove&myfamilyissodarnededucated& wehavesomanywriterfriends" schtick kind of ruined the experience for me.
Rating:
Summary: Superb insights, superb style
Review: A gem. Ms. Fadiman has an outstanding sensibility. This is a collection that demands re-reading ... once or twice is simply not enough. Give it as a gift, first to yourself and then to everyone you know who can appreciate what I can only call "love at first read."
Rating:
Summary: Presumption and a Perfect Set
Review: It is I who feel presumptuous in attempting to comment on such a delightful collection of essays. Indubitably they constitute a Perfect Set. The first one serves to assuage one's insomnia and return the reader to a deep and rewarding sleep strewn with the diamonds Fadiman has cast across the path. The next adds interest and occasion to a too long international flight. The third shortens a bus ride made over long by the inevitable congestion of traffic. Each essay stands alone as a perfect piece of prose and together they make a beautiful collection to open the reader's mind to the manifold nuances of literature.
Rating:
Summary: Wondeful Book - Wonderful writer - I think I'm in love
Review: The essays were delightful - clever, witty and charming. I can't wait until she writes more.
Rating:
Summary: snapshots of a life rich in words and books
Review: Like Fadiman I am a compulsive proofreader myself and a fierce home competitor on College Bowl. Her short essays capture the joys of reading and learning from books, of making notes in the margin and reading aloud as a family recreation. A librarian steered me to this book and I am buying a copy for myself and several for friends for the holidays.
Rating:
Summary: If you want to love books even more.....
Review: Each chapter reveals another aspect of reading that all lifelong readers will thrill to. You'll find yourself reading to others, buying a copy for others and wondering like I do, why isn't this beautiful little volume on display in the book malls? My highest regard, pleasure yourself. Read this book!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: There aren't enough books about books out there, and there are even fewer truly good ones like this. An excellent read.
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