A Common Reader


A Common Reader: Books for Readers with Imagination was an American mail-order book catalog, established in 1986 by James Mustich, Jr., a bookseller, editor, and writer. It was notable among general-interest book catalogs for its eclecticism, with large sections of each issue given over to obscure literary classics.
The catalog was named in honor of Virginia Woolf's two-volume collection of essays, entitled The Common Reader and The Second Common Reader, which collected her lectures and writings about the nature of reading and how best to approach it.
A Common Reader's in-house publishing imprint, the Akadine Press, initiated in 1996, republished over 60 out-of-print books by authors such as Lillian Beckwith, Alice Thomas Ellis, Barbara Holland, Reynolds Price, and John Ciardi.
A Common Reader was published up to 17 times a year, with a readership in the tens of thousands. Each edition listed an average of 700 books, accompanied by editorial write-ups. At its peak, A Common Reader sold over 300,000 titles per year.
The business closed in January 2006, to the regret of many readers who appreciated its discerning finds and well-written précis. The Wayback Machine has snapshots of the catalogue taken between 1999–2006.