Frog, by Anne Fadiman. Pub 2026

Another delightful collection from Fadiman, this one more diverse (or at least less thematically connected) than her previous ones.

Fadiman is a master of the personal essay. She can start with the most mundane or obscure or significant point, and elaborate above and around it in entertaining and enlightening ways such that we learn about the subject, the author, and ourselves. As described in the introduction here, she is also a master at a list, compiling long lists associated with the subjects that ultimately read almost as poetry within the already exquisite prose.

My favourites here were “All My Pronouns” and “Screen Share”. The latter is especially moving, as she writes in real time in 2020 about the experience of migrating quickly to online teaching, and the ripple effects of that to her relationships with students, teaching life, and family. In the pronouns essay, she tackles the use of they/them from a prescriptivist grammarian perspective balanced against her own innate compassion and empathy, coming eventually to a resolution that involves ongoing trying.

While each essay is excellent, there is not a clear unifying theme (perhaps the march of time or progress?). While each essay is quite long (longer than her previous ones), there are fewer of them so the book felt short, but not incomplete, just that I could have stood for much more. The final essay, a reprint of her introduction to Marina Keegan’s sole book, The Opposite of Loneliness, did make me want to reread that one, along with Fadiman’s own previous collections. Perhaps on an upcoming holiday.

Fate: staying with my tiny Fadiman collection.

4 – published in 2026
5 – about language (at least the one essay)
8 – a female author
10 – essays
20 – one word title
28 – an old favourite
37 – non-mainstream (definitely a book that only existing Fadiman lovers would find)