Confessions of a Common Reader

Ex Libris

Anne Fadiman is editor of The American Scholar and an award-winning journalist. Her first book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down won the US National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction. She lives in New York City.

Anne Fadiman is the sort of person who learned about sex from her father's copy of Fanny Hill, and who once found herself poring over a 1974 Toyota Corolla manual because it was the only thing in her apartment that she had not read at least twice. EX LIBRIS wittily recounts a lifelong obsession with books. Writing with humour and erudition she moves easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. 'One of the most delightful volumes to have come across my desk in a long while...witty, enchanting and supremely well-written' -- Robert McCrum, Observer

Anne Fadiman

To those who have read her work, Anne Fadiman is the object of cultish devotion...full of warmth

I relished Anne Fadiman's <I>At Large and At Small

Confessions of a Literary Hedonist

Butterflies, ice-cream, writing at night, playing word games...in this witty, intimate and delicious book Anne Fadiman ruminates on her passions, both literary and everyday. From mourning the demise of letter-writing to revealing a monumental crush on Charles Lamb, from Balzac's coffee addiction to making ice-cream from Liquid Nitrogen, she draws us into a world of hedonistic pleasures and literary delights. This is the perfect book for life's ardent obsessives.

At Large and at Small

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Kate-Atkinson

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

prhuk-authors

Discover the Penguin books that shaped us

Anne Fadiman

Praise for At Large and at Small

Delighteful...as varied as life

To those who have read her work, Anne Fadiman is the object of cultish devotion...full of warmth

I relished Anne Fadiman's At Large and At Small

Delighteful...as varied as life

To those who have read her work, Anne Fadiman is the object of cultish devotion...full of warmth

I relished Anne Fadiman's At Large and At Small

Delighteful...as varied as life

To those who have read her work, Anne Fadiman is the object of cultish devotion...full of warmth

I relished Anne Fadiman's At Large and At Small

Books by Anne Fadiman

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter