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. In the introduction to her new collection of
essays Ex Libris: 100+ Books to Read and Reread Michiko Kakutani writes: "In a world riven by
political and social divisions literature can connect people across time zones and zip codes
across cultures and religions national boundaries and historical eras. It can give us an
understanding of lives very different from our own and a sense of the shared joys and losses
of human experience." 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.
