Book review of “Ex Libris: 100+ Books to Read and Reread” by Michiko Kakutani. The author is a former chief book critic of The New York Times. In her introduction, she listed her reasons for choosing the particular 100+ books: they are well written or inspire empathy or cause reflection or teach us about the world or, I think to put it simply, she just liked them. In addition to describing her own reading habits from her childhood, she shared a story about August Wilson's relationship with books: he dropped out of high school and spent his days reading in the “Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh”. I immediately recognized the name of that library: it appeared in a historical novel that I read months ago called “Carnegie’s Maid” by Marie Benedict. I found it very gratifying that in choosing Benedict and Kakutani’s books, I had learned about a real-life library. To me, this served as an example of connecting new knowledge with old knowledge and thus remembering both more easily: by connecting the real-life existence of the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh where August Wilson sat (new knowledge) with the library as described in a historical novel (old knowledge).
Kakutani reviewed works of fiction and non-fiction from different time periods (dating from the 1500s and up to the present) which covered different topics (politics, history, literature, to name a few). She included both female and male authors but I wish she had balanced these better: females numbered only 28 compared to 82 men. That is an extreme difference. Thankfully, she reviewed one of my favorite books, “A Wrinkle in Time”. I wonder though, how she decided to include it and “Where the Wild Things Are”, both published in the early 1960s, but not other well-known children’s books such as “Charlotte’s Web” published in the early 1950s?
Overall, I am glad that I purchased Kakutani’s book for my expanding library. Her short entry for each book gave me enough of an overview to pique my interest, even if I do not like the subject matter. Also, the number “100+” seems a manageable amount to read over the next few years. I will keep it on my shelf as a reference for those books that I have never read but feel that I should, at least some of them, as part of my own professional development.
