Click to receive personalized book recommendations daily.
Before you go...
Check Out These
21 Books You’ve Been Meaning to Read
See the List
Best Seller
I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Read An Excerpt
Read An Excerpt

I Was Told There’d Be Cake

By Sloane Crosley

By Sloane Crosley

By Sloane Crosley

By Sloane Crosley

By Sloane Crosley
Read by Sloane Crosley

By Sloane Crosley
Read by Sloane Crosley

Paperback $16.00

Apr 01, 2008 | 240 Pages

Ebook $12.99

Apr 01, 2008 | 240 Pages

Audiobook Download $17.50

Jun 03, 2008 | 420 Minutes

All Formats
+
    I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
    Paperback
    Apr 01, 2008 | 240 Pages
    See All Formats (2) +

    Paperback
    –

    • Paperback $16.00

      Apr 01, 2008 | 240 Pages

    Ebook
    +

    • Ebook $12.99

      Apr 01, 2008 | 240 Pages

    Audio
    +

    Buy the Audiobook Download:

    About I Was Told There’d Be Cake

    Hailed by David Sedaris as “perfectly, relentlessly funny” and by Colson Whitehead as “sardonic without being cruel, tender without being sentimental,” from the author of the new collection Look Alive Out There. 

    Wry, hilarious, and profoundly genuine, this debut collection of literary essays is a celebration of fallibility and haplessness in all their glory.

    From despoiling an exhibit at the Natural History Museum to provoking the ire of her first boss to siccing the cops on her mysterious neighbor, Crosley can do no right despite the best of intentions — or perhaps because of them. Together, these essays create a startlingly funny and revealing portrait of a complex and utterly recognizable character who aims for the stars but hits the ceiling, and the inimitable city that has helped shape who she is. I Was Told There’d Be Cake introduces a strikingly original voice, chronicling the struggles and unexpected beauty of modern urban life.

    About I Was Told There’d Be Cake

    Hailed by David Sedaris as “perfectly, relentlessly funny” and by Colson Whitehead as “sardonic without being cruel, tender without being sentimental,” from the author of the new collection Look Alive Out There. 

    Wry, hilarious, and profoundly genuine, this debut collection of literary essays is a celebration of fallibility and haplessness in all their glory.

    From despoiling an exhibit at the Natural History Museum to provoking the ire of her first boss to siccing the cops on her mysterious neighbor, Crosley can do no right despite the best of intentions — or perhaps because of them. Together, these essays create a startlingly funny and revealing portrait of a complex and utterly recognizable character who aims for the stars but hits the ceiling, and the inimitable city that has helped shape who she is. I Was Told There’d Be Cake introduces a strikingly original voice, chronicling the struggles and unexpected beauty of modern urban life.

    About I Was Told There’d Be Cake

    Wry, hilarious, and profoundly genuine, this debut collection of literary essays is a celebration of fallibility and haplessness in all their glory. From despoiling an exhibit at the Natural History Museum to provoking the ire of her first boss to siccing the cops on her mysterious neighbor, Crosley can do no right despite the best of intentions-or perhaps because of them. Together, these essays create a startlingly funny and revealing portrait of a complex and utterly recognizable character that’s aiming for the stars but hits the ceiling, and the inimitable city that has helped shape who she is. I Was Told There’d Be Cake introduces a strikingly original voice, chronicling the struggles and unexpected beauty of modern urban life.

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Also by Sloane Crosley

    How Did You Get This Number
    See all books by Sloane Crosley

    Also by Sloane Crosley

    How Did You Get This Number
    See all books by Sloane Crosley

    Also by Sloane Crosley

    How Did You Get This Number
    See all books by Sloane Crosley

    About Sloane Crosley

    Sloane Crosley is the author of the new collection Look Alive Out There, the novel The Clasp, and the bestselling essay collections How Did You Get This Number and I Was Told There’d Be Cake, which was a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Her… More about Sloane Crosley

    About Sloane Crosley

    Sloane Crosley is the author of the new collection Look Alive Out There, the novel The Clasp, and the bestselling essay collections How Did You Get This Number and I Was Told There’d Be Cake, which was a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Her… More about Sloane Crosley

    About Sloane Crosley

    Sloane Crosley is the author of the new collection Look Alive Out There, the novel The Clasp, and the bestselling essay collections How Did You Get This Number and I Was Told There’d Be Cake, which was a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Her… More about Sloane Crosley

    Product Details

    Category: Humor | Biography & Memoir

    Paperback | $16.00
    Published by Riverhead Books
    Apr 01, 2008 | 240 Pages | 5-1/8 x 8 | ISBN 9781594483066

    Category: Humor | Biography & Memoir

    Ebook | $12.99
    Published by Riverhead Books
    Apr 01, 2008 | 240 Pages | ISBN 9781101147474

    Category: Humor | Biography & Memoir | Audiobooks

    Audiobook Download | $17.50
    Published by Penguin Audio
    Jun 03, 2008 | 420 Minutes | ISBN 9781436228060

    People Who Read I Was Told There’d Be Cake Also Read

    ‹ ›
    The Monk of Mokha
    Stalin
    Martin Luther
    Queens of the Conquest
    Autumn in Venice
    Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3
    At the Existentialist Café
    Louisa
    A Torch Kept Lit
    They Left Us Everything
    Reasons to Stay Alive
    Really the Blues
    What Happened, Miss Simone?
    The Penguin Lessons
    H. L. Mencken: The Days Trilogy, Expanded Edition (LOA #257)
    The Harm in Asking
    Twelve Years a Slave
    My First Summer in the Sierra and Selected Essays
    Kings and Queens of England and Scotland
    Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography
    The Education of Henry Adams
    Seven Years in Tibet
    The Souls of Black Folk
    Playing the Enemy
    Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859-1865
    Orson Welles, Volume 2: Hello Americans
    The Prince
    Theodore Roosevelt: The Rough Riders, An Autobiography (LOA #153)
    Familiar Spirits
    I Am Third
    Audrey Hepburn
    River-Horse
    The History of Mary Prince
    The House of Rothschild
    Catch Me If You Can
    Manhattan Memoir
    Love, Lucy
    My Education
    Dear Theo
    Frederick Douglass: Autobiographies (LOA #68)
    Ulysses S. Grant: Memoirs and Selected Letters (LOA #50)
    William Tecumseh Sherman: Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman (LOA #51)
    Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings Vol. 2 1859-1865 (LOA #46)
    Steinbeck
    Elvis and Me

    Inspired by Your Browsing History

    Praise

    “Sloane Crosley is another mordant and mercurial wit from the realm of Sedaris and Vowell. What makes her so funny is that she seems to be telling the truth, helplessly.”  —Jonathan Lethem

    Awards

    Thurber Prize for American Humor FINALIST

    Looking for More Great Reads?
    Download our Spring Fiction Sampler Now
    Back to Top

    Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network

    Brightly

    Raise kids who love to read
    TASTE img

    TASTE

    An online magazine for today’s home cook

    Signature

    Making Well-Read Sense of the World

    LitFlash

    The eBooks you want at the lowest prices

    Read it Forward

    Read it first. Pass it on!
    First to Read

    First to Read

    Early access to Penguin Random House’s hottest new titles
    Unbound Worlds

    Unbound Worlds

    Exploring the science fiction and fantasy universe