Penguin Little Black Classics review – affordable snippets of great literature

From Homer to Balzac to Darwin to Dickens, these Penguin 80th birthday booklets are where publishing meets public serviceIt was quite overwhelming, to open the box containing all 80 of these booklets – one for each year in the life of Penguin Books. Each is around 60 pages long; each is an extract from the Penguin Classics range. Where to start? In the end I just tipped them out and stuck out my hand at random. To my delight, I picked out Suetonius’s life of Caligula. You are never going to be bored by Suetonius, especially on Caligula. (Although it would perhaps have been more fitting, or certainly cuter, if my debased version of the Sortes Virgilianae – the ancient tradition of using the poet’s works for divination – had actually picked out Penguin’s snippet of Virgil.)As I was reading about the emperor’s vanity and excesses (“during the day he would indulge in whispered conversations with Jupiter Capitolinus” – a statue – “pressing his ear to the god’s mouth and sometimes raising his voice in anger”), I wondered who among us today is so puffed-up that they feel they can bend a venerable institution to their own will, making themselves a laughing-stock while doing so? Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2015-02-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When the Times Book Review Panned the Classics

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Great Ormond Street Hospital launches children's literature ‘Play' hub

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We Need Diverse Books is partnering with Penguin Random House to establish a Black Creatives Fund.

Some good news: today, Publishers Weekly reported that We Need Diverse Books is partnering with Penguin Random House on a series of programs to get more books by Black writers published. The Black Creatives Fund initiative involves a “Revisions Workshop”; a mentoring program; and marketing... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

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When Black kids – shut out from the whitewashed world of children's literature – took matters into their own hands

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25 Great Book Reviews From the Past 125 Years

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Penguin Classics rolls out first podcast series

Penguin Classics is launching a podcast series, "On The Road with Penguin Classics", intended inspire new readers to discover old titles. Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Brinkhurst-Cuff curates Black Joy collection for Penguin

Penguin Books is releasing Black Joy for young adult readers, a collection of writing on race and belonging curated by gal-dem editor-in-chief Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff. Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Margaret Busby: how Britain's first black female publisher revolutionised literature – and never gave up

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Loud Black Girls panel to feature at first Streatham Literature Festival

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Baduza, Wood and Wilson join stars reading Penguin Classics

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Penguin Classics boldly goes into science fiction

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What if the main character of your favorite classic book were black? A publisher makes it so

Penguin Random House teams with TBWA and Barnes & Noble to launch #DiversityEditions for Black History Month. During the Pequod‘s last voyage in Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick, Captain Ahab is 58 years old. Physically, he has a prosthetic leg made of whale bone, and a pale white mark or... Continue reading at Fast Company

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Penguin Press wins 'intimate history' of post-war British black women

Tom Penn, publishing director at Penguin Press, has acquired Rebel Citizen: A History of Black Women Living, Loving and Resisting by feminist historian Jade Bentil. Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Penguin orders independent review of book over antisemitism claims

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Robinson snaps up 100 Great Black Britons book

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Penguin Classics to launch London pop-up bookshop

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