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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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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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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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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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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Kobo’s latest e-reader introduces a color E Ink screen that brings graphic novels, children’s books, and your favorite book covers to life. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2024-04-30 13:00:00 UTC ]
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The editor and essayist Joseph Epstein looks back on his life and career in two new books. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-04-22 09:03:39 UTC ]
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A trio of new contemporary romance offerings from Black authors beckon readers to settings as far-flung as small-town West Virginia and Panama City. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-04-19 04:00:00 UTC ]
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PEN America has faced an enormous amount of criticism from the literary world for, among other things, failing to call Israel’s six-month assault on Gaza a genocide, and is now facing a wave of withdrawals from two of its signature events, the literary awards and the World Voices Festival. In... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-04-18 14:26:32 UTC ]
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In the debut novel “The Band,” a burned-out pop idol meets a disillusioned professor, raising the question: What if the dangers of fame resemble white-collar ennui? Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-04-13 09:02:30 UTC ]
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April, remarkably, is here already—remarkable only, I suppose, because my internal calendar is still stuck on January all too often—and that means that warmer weather and wonderful blooms are also here, both of which I love. (And a solar eclipse on the 8th!) And what better to usher in the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-04-01 08:32:36 UTC ]
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Marilynne Robinson’s Reading Genesis, Tessa Hulls’ Feeding Ghosts, and Kristine S. Ervin’s Rabbit Heart all feature among the best reviewed fiction titles of the month Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s home for book reviews. * 1. Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus and... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-03-29 08:55:59 UTC ]
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John Grisham's longtime publisher will return after a buyout to oversee the publishing strategy for the John Grisham brand, "which will now live alongside the sales and corporate marketing teams," PRH CRO Jaci Updike wrote in a memo. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-03-19 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Libraries across the U.S. are struggling to cover the cost of e-books, which have grown in popularity Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2024-03-12 14:54:40 UTC ]
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In Andrew Boryga’s debut novel, a young writer creates a career for himself by exaggerating, or sometimes completely manufacturing, stories of tragedy. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-03-09 10:00:20 UTC ]
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