Iain J Coleman (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} iainjcoleman) wrote,@ 2007-08-10 11:06:00 |
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Three cheers for Penguin
Hooray for Penguin Classics! They're sending me a free book to review!
This is all thanks toaltariel's prompt intelligence about their new promotional scheme. If you're one of the first 1400 to sign up, they send you a random book from their range on condition that you blog a review of it within six weeks of receipt. I got in in time, and got a slightly cryptic email:
But whose selected poems and letters? Going to the long list of Penguin Classics editions, there are loads and loads of "Selected Poems", "Selected Poems and Fragments" and so on, but only one "Selected Poems and Letters" - by Arthur Rimbaud. Presumably that's the one. If so, it's quite exciting - I've never read any Rimbaud, and now I have a good excuse to give him a go.
My second hooray for Penguin is thanks to their "Penguin Popular Classics" range. Cheap, no-frills paperback editions of classic novels, with distinctive lime-green covers. Perfect if you're stuck for something to read - cheaper than a magazine, and considerably more satisfying. I picked up Moby Dick recently for two quid. Why did nobody tell me how much fun that book is? People bang on about it being terribly long and worthy, but I'm about half way through now and it's an absolute blast. It has the essence of a science fiction story - indeed, space opera is basically an attempt to recapture the feeling of this kind of story now that the age of sail has passed - and the eclectic textual mashups and remixes that Melville delights in make it feel more modern than anything on the Booker shortlist.[1]
I probably wouldn't have bought a full-price introduction-and-notes edition of Moby Dick, and I'd have missed ou on a great tale. I'd also most likely never have got round to reading Rimbaud, let alone blogging about the experience. Penguin are doing a bang-up job of promoting classic literature, at a time when it could easily be swamped by the torrent of new books that come and go every year.
Oh, and a third and final cheer for the Penguin folks: they've finally published posh, corrected and annotated editions of H.P Lovecraft. His journey from pulp obscurity to a recognised place in modern literature would seem to be complete. It took a bit longer for him than for Philip K Dick, but then nobody ever made a Lovecraft movie half as good as Blade Runner.
[1] I haven't actually read anything on this year's Booker shortlist: I'm just playing the odds here.
Hooray for Penguin Classics! They're sending me a free book to review!
This is all thanks to
altariel's prompt intelligence about their new promotional scheme. If you're one of the first 1400 to sign up, they send you a random book from their range on condition that you blog a review of it within six weeks of receipt. I got in in time, and got a slightly cryptic email:
Congratulations! You are one of the lucky readers to receive a free Penguin Classic and be first to review it on BlogaPenguinClassic.co.uk. We will send you the book shortly, and don't forget you have agreed to review it within six weeks of receipt!
Your book is: Selected Poems And Letters
But whose selected poems and letters? Going to the long list of Penguin Classics editions, there are loads and loads of "Selected Poems", "Selected Poems and Fragments" and so on, but only one "Selected Poems and Letters" - by Arthur Rimbaud. Presumably that's the one. If so, it's quite exciting - I've never read any Rimbaud, and now I have a good excuse to give him a go.
My second hooray for Penguin is thanks to their "Penguin Popular Classics" range. Cheap, no-frills paperback editions of classic novels, with distinctive lime-green covers. Perfect if you're stuck for something to read - cheaper than a magazine, and considerably more satisfying. I picked up Moby Dick recently for two quid. Why did nobody tell me how much fun that book is? People bang on about it being terribly long and worthy, but I'm about half way through now and it's an absolute blast. It has the essence of a science fiction story - indeed, space opera is basically an attempt to recapture the feeling of this kind of story now that the age of sail has passed - and the eclectic textual mashups and remixes that Melville delights in make it feel more modern than anything on the Booker shortlist.[1]
I probably wouldn't have bought a full-price introduction-and-notes edition of Moby Dick, and I'd have missed ou on a great tale. I'd also most likely never have got round to reading Rimbaud, let alone blogging about the experience. Penguin are doing a bang-up job of promoting classic literature, at a time when it could easily be swamped by the torrent of new books that come and go every year.
Oh, and a third and final cheer for the Penguin folks: they've finally published posh, corrected and annotated editions of H.P Lovecraft. His journey from pulp obscurity to a recognised place in modern literature would seem to be complete. It took a bit longer for him than for Philip K Dick, but then nobody ever made a Lovecraft movie half as good as Blade Runner.
[1] I haven't actually read anything on this year's Booker shortlist: I'm just playing the odds here.
