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Common Reader Editions

Common Reader Editions


Beginning in the late 1990s, Akadine Press, through its catalog company, A Common Reader reissued dozens of neglected titles in handsome paperback editions. With a few exceptions, the titles dated from the 1940s on, but they ranged from story collections to cookbooks, and included quite a few commonplace books, such John Ciardi’s “Browser” dictionaries and Barbara Holland’s light-hearted collections. In particular, the press championed English novelist Alice Thomas Ellis.

Sadly, A Common Reader filed for bankruptcy in early 2006 and it’s unlikely further titles in this series will ever be reprinted.


· Adam’s Task: Calling Animals by Name, Vicki Hearne
· The Adventurer, Paul Zweig
· Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village, Ronald Blythe
· All The Time In The World, Hugo Williams
· American Places, William Zinsser
· Another Self, James Lees-Milne
· Anybody Can Do Anything, Betty MacDonald
· The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, Oliver Wendell Holmes
· Bachelor Brothers’ Bed & Breakfast, Bill Richardson
· Bandit: Dossier of a Dangerous Dog, Vicki Hearne
· The Birds of the Air, Alice Thomas Ellis
· The Black Hole Of Calcutta, Noel Barber
· Blessings in Disguise, Alec Guinness
· Brief Heroes and Histories, Barbara Holland
· A Browser’s Dictionary, John Ciardi
· The Candlemass Road, George MacDonald Fraser
· Captain Blood, Rafael Sabatini
· Ceremonials of Common Days, Abbie Graham
· The Coast of Bohemia, Edith Pargeter
· The Complete Henry Root Letters, edited by William Donaldson
· A Coffin for King Charles, C.V. Wedgwood
· Come, Tell Me How You Live, Agatha Christie Mallowan
· A Day of Light and Shadows, Jonathan Schwartz
· The Dead Secret, Wilkie Collins
· Dream Days, Kenneth Grahame
· Emerald, Elisabeth Luard
· Endangered Pleasures : In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences, Barbara Holland
· England’s House, Vera Brittain
· Evening of Adam, Alice Thomas Ellis
· Fairy Tale, Alice Thomas Ellis
· Following the Brush, John Elder
· Gift Of Fire, Richard Mitchell
· The Golden Age, Kenneth Grahame
· The Graves Of Academe, Richard Mitchell
· The Haunted Bookshop, Christopher Morley
· The Hills is Lonely, Lillian Beckwith
· In Love With Daylight, Wilfrid Sheed
· The Inn at the Edge of the World, Alice Thomas Ellis
· In Private Life, Barbara Holland
· Invasion 1940, Peter Fleming
· I See By My Outfit, Peter Beagle
· La Tavola Italiana, Tom Maresca and Diane Darrow
· Lady Molly Of Scotland Yard, Baroness Orczy
· Leaning Tower of Babel, Richard Mitchell
· Less Than Words Can Say, Richard Mitchell
· The Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters 1955-1962, George Lyttelton and Rupert Hart-Davis
· Love Conquers All, Robert Benchley
· Marguerite, Elisabeth Luard
· The Man Who Robbed the Robber Baron, Andy Logan
· The Marriage of Meggotta, Edith Pargeter
· Max Jamison: A Novel, Wilfred Sheed
· McAuslan Entire, George MacDonald Fraser
· The Morning After … and Long After, Wilfrid Sheed
· My Cousin Rachel, Daphne Du Maurier
· No Bed for Bacon, Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon
· Of All Things!, Robert Benchley
· The Old World Kitchen, Elisabeth Luard
· One’s Company, Barbara Holland
· Parnassus on Wheels, Christopher Morley
· The Plague And I, Betty MacDonald
· Playing for Time, Jeremy Lewis
· Quartered Safe Out Here, George Macdonald Fraser
· The Pyrates, George MacDonald Fraser
· The Return of the Twelves , Pauline Clarke and Bernarda Bryson
· Rome and a Villa, Eleanor Clark
· Scaramouche, Rafael Sabatini
· Screaming In The Castle, Charles Nicholl
· The Sea for Breakfast, Lillian Beckwith
· Seaspray and Whiskey, Norman Freeman
· A Second Browser’s Dictionary, John Ciardi
· Secrets of the Cat : Its Lore, Legend, and Lives, Barbara Holland
· The Seven Deadly Sins, W.H. Auden, Cyril Connolly, Patrick Leigh-Fermor, Edith Sitwell, Christopher Sykes, Evelyn Waugh, and Angus Wilson
· The Sin Eater, Alice Thomas Ellis
· Skye High, Hesketh Pearson and Hugh Kingsmill
· Something Wholesale: My Life and Times in the Rag Trade, Eric Newby
· The Steel Bonnets, George MacDonald Fraser
· The Summer House Trilogy, Alice Thomas Ellis
· A Third Browser’s Dictionary, John Ciardi
· Through the Magic Door, Arthur Conan Doyle
· Trooper to the Southern Cross, Angela Thirkell
· The 27th Kingdom, Alice Thomas Ellis
· Unexplained Laughter, Alice Thomas Ellis
· The Villa Ariadne, Dilys Powell
· Walls Came Tumbling Down, Henriette Roosenburg
· Wasn’t the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon’s Fond Memories, Barbara Holland
· The Weather Prophet, Lucretia Stewart
· Within This Wilderness, Feenie Ziner
· The Zoom Trilogy, Tim Wynne-Jones and Eric Beddows

10 thoughts on “Common Reader Editions”

  1. Two points in regard to Akadine Press/Common Reader:

    1] Probably my most prized possession from Common Reader are the set of books “The First Cuckoo”, “The Last Cuckoo” (and two others, which, since I can’t find my copies at the moment, I can’t give their exactly titles…)

    The books consisted of selections from the letters page of The Times of London. Quirky britishism at it best –but alas, I can’t find any place where that they might be available on-line.

    (If you’re wondering about the title, apparently The Times used to [perhaps it still does?] publish letters from folks around Britain hoping that they might be the first to announce having seen a cuckoo each spring.)

    2] In regards to their wonderful catalogues: For a while Common Reader sold sturdy slipcase covers which would hold a dozen or so catalogues. (Somewhere around here I have a few of these, chock full of catalogues –but, again, alas, they’re not findable at the moment.)

  2. I envy you. Back when I received them, I never thought there would be a day when they wouldn’t keep coming in the mail. Now, they’re almost impossible to find.

  3. I have held on to a few copies of The Common Reader catalogue. I loved reading the catalogue and wished I could purchase every single book they offered, knowing what a splendid library I would have. It’s been awhile since I perused a catalogue, but I opened up the August 2002 edition this morning while lounging in bed. What a pleasant read to start the day. I so miss this catalogue and richness it gave my imagination to be an owner of many good books.

  4. When I moved I had to get rid of all my back issues of A Common Reader catalog. Sad, because they had so many books that I wanted to read one day, or that I wanted to introduce to children when they were old enough, etc. I cam online specifically to try to find out the title of a book they used to offer that explained physics in simple terms, for children or for adults, I’m not sure which. From the description, it was quite simple. I seem to remember a cartoon picture of someone swinging an object in a basket as an illustration of centrifugal force. Wanted to find that book as inspiration for a godson who is a budding engineer and loves to build ‘devices that do things.’

    I wish that whoever ran A Common Reader would come back as a website with reviews and recommendations. I so enjoyed reading the descriptions of the books – just the catalog was a pleasure to receive and read. I’m sure it would be a successful website.

  5. The Common Reader website did go offline years ago. This particular page just lists the books published under their own imprint when they were still in business.

  6. PHYLLIS ROSE’S BOOK: THE SHELF- reviewed by THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR BOOK REVIEW STAFF is a book that is somewhat fascinating as a read. She suggests books and other reading possibilities, why a book is discarded by a library, censorship, translations, how professors suggest how to read a book which book they consider a student should read in the class and hopefully later in life. Rose suggested looking at the COMMON READER SITE ONLINE. Is this the online COMMON READER WEB PAGE-1 REASON. The author said this site went belly up years ago. Looking at the write up by this page suggests this is it the site she wrote concerning book suggestions read or not to read.
    Stay with this site until you get bored with its suggestions???

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