Frog - by Anne Fadiman (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A new collection of evocative personal essays from one of America's most beloved nonfiction writers, Anne Fadiman.

In Frog, Anne Fadiman returns to her favorite genre, the essay, of which she is one of our most celebrated practitioners. Ranging in subject matter from her deceased frog, to archaic printer technology, to the fraught relationship between Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his son Hartley, these essays unlock a whole world--one overflowing with mundanity and oddity--through sly observation and brilliant wit.

The diverse subjects of Frog are bound together by the quality of Fadiman's attention, and subtly, they come to form a slantwise portrait of the artist, a writer dedicated to chronicling the world as it changes around her, in ways small and large, as time passes.

Review Quotes

"Witty, sometimes wistful, always sharply observed pieces . . . Deft [and] graceful . . . A delightful gathering." --Kirkus Reviews

"In Frog, Anne Fadiman writes, with equal insight and clarity, about subjects that range from an unfortunate family pet to a doomed expedition to the South Pole. I'd be hard-pressed to name another writer whose work is so humane, penetrating, and gorgeously wrought. There are lines in this book I'd consider having tattooed onto my chest." --Michael Cunningham, author of Day

"Affecting and often humorous . . . Fadiman has a knack for finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, using everyday objects to explore such profound themes as grief, loss, and personal growth . . . Readers will be captivated." --Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Anne Fadiman is the author of The Wine Lover's Daughter, a memoir about her father (2017). Her first book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (1997), won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Salon Book Award. Fadiman has also written two other essay collections, Ex Libris and At Large and At Small, and edited Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love (all published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux). She is Professor in the Practice of English and Francis Writer in Residence at Yale.