Ex Libris: 100 books to read and rereadby Michiko Kakutani
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780008421953
Publication Date: October 20, 2020
Pages: 301
Genre: Essays
Publisher: William Collins
Pulitzer Prize–winning literary critic Michiko Kakutani shares 100 personal, thought-provoking essays about books that have mattered to her and that help illuminate the world we live in today—with beautiful illustrations throughout.
Readers will discover novels and memoirs by some of the most gifted writers working today; favorite classics worth reading or rereading; and nonfiction works, both old and new, that illuminate our social and political landscape and some of today’s most pressing issues, from climate change to medicine to the consequences of digital innovation. There are essential works in American history (The Federalist Papers, The Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.); books that address timely cultural dynamics (Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction, Daniel J. Boorstin’s The Image, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale); classics of children’s literature (the Harry Potter novels, Where the Wild Things Are); and novels by acclaimed contemporary writers like Don DeLillo, William Gibson, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Ian McEwan.
With richly detailed illustrations by lettering artist Dana Tanamachi that evoke vintage bookplates, Ex Libris is an impassioned reminder of why reading matters more than ever.
This was my Jolabokaflod/Jólabókaflóð gift this year – books about books are catnip to me, but I’d have loved it for the illustrations and binding alone – it’s just a really attractive book.
The author, who’s a literary critic for the New York Times in her day job, has assembled 100+ books she thinks are not only worth reading but also re-reading. Most of these are not run-of-the-mill canon books, and she includes a mix of fiction, non-fiction, memoir and poetry. Most were titles I’d never heard of; most for solid reasons concerning my own reading tastes. There’s a heavy theme of dystopia throughout that I think is a mistake – we might be living in dark days, indeed, but referencing, or tying books back into, our specific times and our specific monkeys will have the unfortunate effect of dating this collection before its time.
There were almost a dozen books, though, that I’ve added to my list books I’d like to pursue at some point. Most are non-fiction, a few – like the Federalist Papers, the speeches and writings of Lincoln, and Washington’s Farewell Address have been on the radar for years, but there are a couple of memoirs, a book about Bell Labs and at least one work of fiction I discovered by reading this collection. My TBR didn’t need the additional heft, but I suspect it will be a better, more well-rounded TBR for having these titles added.
If you’re looking to expand your reading horizons, or are just a TBR masochist like I am, this book provides fertile ground, in spite of its dystopian slant towards collective self-loathing; between all the ‘world has gone to hell’ titles there are quite a few gems that are sure to appeal to a multitude of tastes. And did I mention the (hardcover) book is gorgeous?
Had this on my TBR for years…cut it recently. May have to put it back on.
This one was only published in 2020 – might you be (very rightly) mixing it up with Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman? (Which I also adored by the way – that was a 5 star read for me, but more because of the essays, not the books she mentioned.)
Ah, well, then I had it on my TBR for about a year before cutting it. The Fadiman is still on the list…