Tag Archives: fiction
Penguins on Parade: Sigrid Undset!
Some Penguin Classics get the royal treatment – whether they deserve it or not. By ‘royal treatment’ I of course mean not only induction into the Classics line itself, honor enough though it is for one lifetime, but the bestowal of one of Penguin’s gorgeous “Deluxe” volumes, extra-sized, deckle-edged, supremely aesthetic re-packagings that not every [...]
Penguins on Parade: Appointment in Samarra!
Some Penguin Classics – the vast majority of them, in fact – make their appearance too late to console their authors. Our case-in-point today involves an author who needed more consoling than most: the novelist and short story writer John O’Hara, who flourished in the 1930s and ‘40s, in the heady first heyday of The [...]
Penguins on Parade: Wives and Daughters!
Some Penguin Classics make their courtroom cases with the blunt force of a bulldog trial lawyer, flatly asserting that their client deserves a better deal. Of course this is what all reprint editions should do, ideally: no book should assume a second life in print – books cost money to make and time to read, after [...]
A Tired Pilgrim in the Penny Press!
Novelist Ian McEwan writes a deliberately provocative little squib for the newly-redesigned New Republic (disastrously redesigned as well – it disappears on the newsstand, especially this current issue, which for no particular reason has no cover illustration, just the boring new logo on a field of white), something called “The God That Fails” and sub-titled [...]
The Illustrious Prince!
Our book today is E. Phillips Oppenheim’s 1910 thriller, The Illustrious Prince, which opens right away, on Page 1, with an inadvertent thrill delivered right over the heads of its contemporary readers and right to the reading cortex of its 21st Century audience. In the opening scene, a luxury liner has missed its evening tide [...]
Encyclopedia Brown!
Our book today is Donald Sobol’s 1963 classic Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, which introduced Sobol’s immortal character, 10-year-old super-sleuth Leroy “Encyclopedia” Brown, to legions of young people who until they read the book had no idea they liked reading at all – and then found they loved it. Our diminutive hero – “a complete library [...]
Best Books of 2012: Fiction Debuts!
Another yardstick useful in measuring the strength of publishing is the health of its new genes. I have a large soft spot for debut novels (having yanked more than my fair share of them out of talented young authors who fought me tooth and nail the whole time), and 2012 was an exciting, encouraging year [...]
Through the Magic Door!
Our book today is Arthur Conan Doyle’s lovely little 1907 ditty Through the Magic Door, which is organized along the conceit of Doyle taking readers on a tour of his book-lined study – pointing out first this title, then that one, and letting the reminiscences and digressions bubble forth just as they would in a [...]
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