Anne Fadiman’s At Large and At Small is a collection of familiar essays that I had set aside to read during the holidays. Once I started, I decided rather than reading through this little book in a few days, I would deliberately try to read just one essay every few days, so while I started this book during the Christmas season, it was well into the new year before I closed the book on the final essay.

Fadiman is the author of Ex Libris, a book beloved by many book lovers, and At Large and At Small is a worthy companion to the earlier volume. She begins the book by explaining what a familiar essay is and when it was most popular, and why some have lamented its imminent demise.  I enjoyed each essay to some degree, although there were a few that stood out as favorites. In “The Unfuzzy Lamb” she describes her adoration of Charles Lamb and what it is about his life and his writing that inspire devotion in his fans. This was probably about the sixth book I’ve read in the last few months that reference Charles Lamb. As I said in an earlier post, I took this as a sign, and ordered a used copy of The Essays of Elia through the Amazon Marketplace. Strangely, even though Lamb seems adored by many, his works are out of print. My pristine used copy arrived today and I’m looking forward to reading it.

In “Mail” she talks about the anticipation of getting the mail, the excitement it produces when there is more than bils and junk mail, and the dying (or dead, depending on who you ask) art of letter-writing. Growing up, I had more than twenty penpals from around the world which I acquired one by one through International Youth Service, which is, sadly, no more. One of those penpals turned into my very dear friend, Giuseppe, who has been part of my life for more than twenty years. Nowadays we communicate through e-mail or Facebook, but I sometimes look wistfully back upon those days when I would wait anxiously for weeks for a letter to arrive in the mail.

The only essay I didn’t particularly care for was the last one, about a canoe trip she took when she was younger in which a young man drowned. The essay was heartfelt and eloquent, but it’s somber tone didn’t really fit in with the rest of the book. Overall the collection is a pleasurable read, by turns whimsical, enlightening and witty, essays that I will read again, in a book that will have a permanent place on my bookshelf.

With twelve essays, At Large and At Small marks my first foray into the Essay Reading Challenge.