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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December’s Top Reviews of Self-Published Books from BlueInk Review

This month's starred reviews of self-published books includes a "stellar" historical novel and a "touching" memoir of life as a teacher of disadvantaged students. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-12-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Banning bad reviews undermines the very purpose of reviews

In an interview with Poynter back at the beginning of November, BuzzFeed book editor Isaac Fitzgerald said that the site will not include negative reviews. "Why waste breath talking smack about something? You see it in so many old media-type places, the scathing takedown rip. If you can’t say... Continue reading at Betanews

[ Betanews | 2013-12-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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November’s Top Reviews of Self-Published Books from BlueInk Review

This month's starred self-published books of note include a fictional tragedy in pre-colonial Nigeria and a memoir where beer pong meets sado-masochism. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-11-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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October’s Top Reviews of Self-Published Books from BlueInk Review

This month's recipients of starred reviews from BlueInk include a novel about a schizophrenic New Yorker who believes he is Beethoven and a timely look at profiteering in American medicine. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-10-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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September’s Top Reviews of Self-Published Books from BlueInk Review

This month's “starred” reviews of self-published books include a collection of spiritualist lectures, an examination of the Andean Q’ero faith and a pair of compelling novels. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-09-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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August’s Top Reviews of Self-Published Books from BlueInk Review

Among this month's starred reviews: a novel in which the discovery of a sexy 19th-century manuscript leads to erotic adventures, and a comprehensive guide for psychotherapists. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-08-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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July’s Top Reviews of Self-Published Books from BlueInk Review

This month's starred reviews from BlueInk Review of self-published books includes several "stay-up-all-night-until-your-eyes-bleed" thrillers, as well as a memoir from the ringmaster of The Big Apple Circus. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-07-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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June’s Top Reviews of Self-published Books from BlueInk Review

Self-published books receiving starred reviews from BlueInk this month include a novel about a wisecracking cat that investigates the death of its owner and a memoir of escaping Romania under Soviet rule. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-06-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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May’s Top Reviews of Self-published Books from BlueInk Review

This month's starred self-published titles include a novel about lesbian nuns in pre-WWII Germany and a memoir from the daughter of 1960s cult leaders, among others. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-05-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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TokyoPop Moves Its Distribution to Penguin Random House

Beginning January 1, Penguin Random House Publisher Services will sell and distribute the entire TokyoPop frontlist and backlist across all sales channels worldwide. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-05-15 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Black 'Nones' Find a Humanist 'Religion'

More Black Americans are choosing nonbelief as their "religion" and Humanism as their new identification, says Anthony Pinn, author of 'The Black Practice of Disbelief: An Introduction to the Principles, History, and Communities of Black Nonbelievers' (Beacon, May 22). PW caught up with Pinn to... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-05-15 04:00:00 UTC ]
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World Literature Today Announces 2024 Student Translation Prize Winners, by the Editors of WLT

World Literature Today Announces 2024 Student Translation Prize Winners, by the Editors of WLT News and Events [email protected] Tue, 05/14/2024 - 16:27 Lucy Coleman and Madeline Jones, winners of the 2024 Student Translation PrizesWorld Literature... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2024-05-14 21:27:38 UTC ]
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Russian dissident wins Pulitzer for columns he wrote 'at great personal risk' from prison cell

Vladimir Kara-Murza, 42, won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary for his Washington Post columns about Russian politics and society — all of which he wrote in prison.  Continue reading at CBC

[ CBC | 2024-05-08 19:11:21 UTC ]
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Book Review: ‘Early Sobrieties,’ by Michael Deagler

Michael Deagler’s first novel follows a young man who is piecing his life back together and trying very hard not to drink. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2024-05-06 09:00:26 UTC ]
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What Latin American Literature Can Teach the Current Leaders of Latin America

Daniel Noboa, the president of Ecuador, might have saved himself a lot of trouble, if he had only read more Latin American literature. Perhaps he would not have ordered the police to storm the Mexican embassy to arrest former Vice President Jorge Glas, who had been granted asylum there. That... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2024-05-06 08:58:43 UTC ]
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Confronting the audience and breaking the fourth wall: why Black drama is getting meta

On stage and screen, self-referential works such as A Strange Loop and American Fiction are on the rise, with playful postmodernism a potent weapon in the fight against inequalityOfficers storm a ballroom, releasing a flurry of bullets that pierce through a Black man as he collapses in a pool of... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2024-05-06 08:00:34 UTC ]
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