Contrary to the claim of the subtitle of Ex Libris, Anne Fadiman is anything but a common reader, and her essays collected here don't contain much by way of confession, unless you count the revelations of extreme nerdishness in the family she grew up in (her father would throw lines of poetry at the children on long car rides, challenging them to identify the source; the Fadimans were highly organised, actively engaged listeners to a particular radio quiz show). Nor, strictly speaking, are the essays about reading as such. But 'Miscellaneous ruminations of a bookish person' doesn't have much of a ring to it, so I'm happy to forgive the false advertising. With New Yorkerish sophistication and lightness of touch, the essays approach books from any number of angles: as objects to be read, certainly, but also as collectibles, elements of home décor, markers of the stages of a marriage (the first essay deals with the challenge of blending libraries). There's a piece on plagiarism which plays with the idea that all writing builds on things the writer has read -- and I swear I read whole paragraphs of it pretty much word for word on the internet recently over someone else's name. Another essay talks about authors' inscriptions, ranging from oft-told anecdotes about the famous dead to (and here's the Writers' Block phenomenon) witty things Ms Fadiman's friends have written at book signings.

In one of the essays in A New York Life, Brendan Gill also identifies as a commoner, one of the ordinary, workaday inhabitants of his city -- but the moment passes. Elsewhere he is at pains to let us know that he is a Bones man, that is to say a member of Harvard's exclusive and secretive Skull and Bones club (of which George W Bush is probably the least distinguished member), and from one perspective (a mean-spirited one) the book could be described as an extended exercise in name-dropping: it's a collection of portraits, ranging from intimate accounts of friendship to smooth journalistic 'profiles', of distinguished writers, architects, film stars, patrons of the arts, and other luminaries. He quotes the famous exchange between F Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway -- 'The rich are different from other people.' 'Yes, they have more money.' -- and laments that Hemingway's clever riposte blocked what would have been an interesting line of enquiry. This book isn't about the very rich, but nor is it about struggling working class artists. Some of his subjects came from poor immigrant backgrounds, but almost all are, or were, part of what he calls 'society'; there are a number of Jews, Gay men and Lesbians, and even at least one Black woman (Ellen Stewart of New York's LaMama). But this definitely isn't the New York of Spike Jones or Andy Warhol.

After those two books, Stanley and Sophie seemed the natural choice from my swaying bedside pile. In her recent writing, including the current Quarterly Essay, Kate Jennings has established a persona who acknowledges her Australian origins but is a literary New Yorker to her bootstraps. This book is a memoir dealing with two dogs she acquired soon after her husband died in similar circumstances to the husband of the heroine of her novel Moral Hazard. There's a clue on how to read it in an early chapter: she recalls trying to persuade her elderly father to get a puppy, threatening to have someone dump one on his doorstep, and he astonishes her by weeping.

I would remember times when he was in great distress, but never tears.
'What's wrong, Dad?'
'I had to shoot all my dogs, and I never want to do that again.'
I absorbed this remark, the shock of those tears. When conversation takes a serious turn, Australians throw vats of boiling, spitting oil over one another in the form of humor [sic]. They are not denying their emotions; they are obliterating them. 'Dad,' I said, 'I think this time it'll be the other way around. The dogs are going to have to shoot you.'