Rating: 
Summary: Stunning
Review: It took me a few attempts to get rolling with this book. There is no real action and not a lot of dialogue - the story just sort of meanders along. Still, my perseverance was well-rewarded...and how! John Crowley's writing has an elegance and beauty that is simply incomparable. I could throw out any number of adjectives - lyrical, sensual, dense, profound...in short, an amazing achievement. I have re-read it many times since, and each time I notice new details and depths. Like other reviewers, I always pick up extra copies to loan to my friends. The complex story is hard to describe or explain very well; I just tell them to read it (and return it, which they seldom do). I really don't know what else I can say about this magnificent book. As it has become my favorite novel, I cannot recommend "Little, Big" more highly. How John Crowley's novels remain out-of-print is impossible to fathom. I would also recommend E.R. Eddison's (also out-of-print) "Zimiamvia" trilogy - a beautifully-written fantasy, and Mervyn Peake's "Gormenghast" trilogy - like "Little, Big" it is short on action and dialogue, but the writing is superb.
Rating:
Summary: Found: 2400 copies of Little, Big
Review: I actually located a few thousand copies through a book club, and joined in order to get some. (I've given away maybe twenty copies since I first read this book in 1986.) You can join yourself and get eleven copies for the price of four, plus shipping and handling, or if you just want one copy let me know and I'll buy a copy for you. It's hardcover, book club edition with stupid, goofy artwork on the dust jacket but good typesetting (better than the mass market paperback, as good as the '84 edition.) Book club is: Science Fiction Book Club, sfbc.com. Their catalog number for this book: 174649 Oh, and checking their site just now it appears that you MAY be able to order a single copy from them without joining! But if not, please contact me and I'll get a copy for you. I'm at: snootfull@hotmail.com Such a nice book. How can it be out of print (again!)? Baffling!
Rating:
Summary: little big
Review: I read a lot. A lot. This is my favorite book. Plot is subtle and distant. Images are touching and beatiful. The settings are haunting and enthralling. Mood shifts but always keeps a sense of the personal and the magical, it is always gentle (even when love is lost, and so is self). Penetrating beauty polished by the flow of words. "a ways down strange and shady lanes".
Rating: 
Summary: More like a drug than a book...
Review: ...reminds me in some ways of when MYST first came out, spending 3 days getting lost in it and figuring my way out -- when I resurfaced, the world was a different place for awhile. LITTLE, BIG is so intense, in so many directions at once, with such easy-natured reverence for the disparate literary and metaphysical traditions it weaves together... Only the end lets down. I felt like I'd been with a lover who was too selfish to finish me off. Raw deal and blueballs. Still, well worth the ride. Crowley's best book so far.
Rating:
Summary: stunning, erudite....I'm running out of adjectives
Review: Of all of the fantasy and science fiction writers of the last twenty-five years, John Crowley is by far the most eloquent and the most overlooked. Unfortunately for the reader, sampling any of Crowley's literary wares is therefore a difficult proposition at best. ALL of his work is amazing in both scope and depth, but this is arguably one of his three best (the other two being 'Aegypt' and 'Engine Summer'). Take heed, as any one of Crowley's WORST trounces anything else in the field (whatever that might be...), and this is what makes ordering a used copy of his books worthwhile, even given inflated pricings.... Having read all of Crowley's work (except the elusive 'Antiquities'), I can safely say that noone in the fantasy field has ever (!) come this close to being truly 'immortal literature'. If you enjoyed "One Hundred Years of Solitude", and appreciate Dickens...Crowley should be your dream come true.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, A Fairy Story That Isn't Trite!
Review: I finished reading this book last August and it still hasn't left my mind. The story is thouroughly magical and enchanting. But a warning. Don't forget any detail no mattter how small, they are very important later. Think Dickens in a way. But trust me, its worth it!
Rating: 
Summary: Not my glass slipper
Review: It seems that with Little, Big, one either loves the story (the majority) or is bored to tears by it. I confess I was of the latter class. Little, Big dragged so much in spots with its apparent aimlessness that I found myself thinking that I preferred even Dickens' writing. This rather massive novel is fairly episodic, centering on certain memories of the eccentric people, or their stories; I found the lack of a central theme until the end very irritating. Yes, lovely allusions and interesting eccentric characters and house, but-- surely a stronger central plot isn't too much to ask? What I thought would be a whimsical and delightful fantasy turned out to just be monotonous. I think I'll go back to reading Stardust or The Princess Bride, thanks.
Rating:
Summary: homegrown magical realism
Review: As most other commenters have noted, this is a book that makes its home deep in your heart. I try to keep several copies on hand so I always have one to lend to folks who have yet to discover its magic. Its fantasy is a subtle one, one that wraps itself around you almost without your being aware of it. Its pleasures are numerous -- the language, the story, the allusions, the esoterica, the emotions. It is surely one of the finest American novels ever written.
Rating:
Summary: My favorite book.
Review: I'm echoing the praise of the other reviewers, and also their amazement that the book is no longer in print. I, too, have lost several copies by trying to share them with everybody. It is a wonderful, magical book, with little pieces of wisdom hinted at: 'the further in you go, the bigger it gets'...what does that mean? I'm not real sure, but I think it's profound. And the words from sampler on the wall, "Those things that make us happy make us wise," still sing in my mind, and as I grow older, I more and more believe that it is so.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most beautiful books I've ever read.
Review: This is, hands down, one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read, and perhaps the only pure fantasy novel I've ever enjoyed on all levels: intellectual, esthetic, etc. Why it's currently out of print is beyond me. This is a book to read, enjoy and keep to read to your children some day.
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