Clifton Fadiman

American, 1904 - 1999

Clifton Fadiman was a distinguished American intellectual, author, editor, and radio and television personality. Over the course of his career, he was the editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, the book critic of The New Yorker, and the host of the popular radio program Information Please. He wrote three essay collections; co-authored The New Lifetime Reading Plan (1997); and edited many books, including The World Treasury of Children’s Literature (1984) and The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes (1985). He spent more than half a century on the editorial board of the Book-of-the-Month Club, serving longer than any other judge in its history. In 1993, Fadiman received the National Book Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.