Penguin is putting out snazzy, mesmerizing, jacket-less hardcover editions of a number of classics. These remind of the old books on my parents’ shelves. You won’t be able to get your hands on these for a few months though.
Hardcover Beauties
On Translating Robert Walser
The Quarterly Conversation interviews Susan Bernofsky, gifted translator of Robert Walser (whose Microscripts are due out this month.)
Did You Hear That?
Grab your tinfoil caps, everyone. Ben Granger at 3:AM Magazine has published a new piece on Umberto Eco, Dan Brown, and conspiracy literature.
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Kafka as Comedy
"When you think Franz Kafka, what comes to mind? Mitteleuropean gloom, perhaps… What you don't think of is standup comedy." Two young comedians are staging a new version of Kafka's The Trial to hit the London stage next month.
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“A record encapsulating all that is America”
You should check out George Saunders’s “Liner Notes” piece about “2776: A Musical Journey Through America’s Past, Present & Future,” which is set to accompany a forthcoming musical-comedy album from Patton Oswalt, Aubrey Plaza, Ira Glass, and Yo La Tengo, among others. If that hasn’t sold you, consider the fact that Saunders’s piece contains this line: “Truth be told, there were a number of regrettable omissions. Beyoncé and Jay Z’s piece ‘Bomber’ had to be left off the album. (‘Driver of this plane, this / B-52 on the way to Nagasaki / Stuff your ears with cotton and / Close those eyes / Me and my man are about to do it all over this / Here bomb’).”
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Read Yourself Saintly
Though the world may never know whether reading the greats makes you a better person, according to a recent study, those who take an active interest in the arts are more likely to be altruistic.
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Some of these have been out in Canada for a while. You can even get ’em for $15 CAN plus tax, which a decent price for nice covers.
These have been in bookstores since before Christmas. Or, at least, I saw a few in a Border’s in CT in December.
I’d be curious to know if any of these are abridged. That “Treasure Island” looks like a winner, but not if it’s an abridged version –
A number of these were published a while ago. You can see them at Anthropologie.
http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/category.jsp?popId=HOME&navAction=middle&navCount=90&isSortBy=true&pushId=HOME-BOOKS&id=HOME-BOOKS-NOVELS
Yes, many of them have been available in the states since before Christmas; I got two as gifts. It looks like they are slowly adding to the collection, so some books have not yet been released.
Neither of the two that I have are abridged. In fact, for the two I have, the insides are basically all the nice features of a paperback Penguin Classic. (Intro, Text, Notes, Appendices if necessary.) Actually, it seems like these are all just the insides of a penguin classic with awesome awesome covers.
Knowing Penguin, these books are printed on flimsy newspaper paper that turns brown in 10 years (or 5). The “hardcover” boards will be flimsy. Don’t buy em to keep around.