This witty collection of essays recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. Writing with humour and erudition, Fadiman revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. As someone who played at building bricks with ther father's 22-volume set of Trollope, and who considered herself truly married only when she and her husband merged book collections, she is well-equipped to expand upon the perverse pleasures of compulsive proofreading, the satisfactions of reading aloud, and the siren call of literary gluttony.