Friday, July 30, 2010

Happy Birthday Emily Bronte


"I cannot express it: but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. "
Emily Bronte

Happy Birthday, you troubled beauty.
Only 30 years of walking the earth were bestowed upon you.
But you look really good for 192.

Forever admiring your wild spirit and stubborn independence,

Friday, May 7, 2010

A literary journey by Penguin



I know it's been like all things Penguin around these parts this week (see here, here, and here), but I have really just been so impressed with how they are reinventing classics through art and promoting the love of reading to a new generation.  As I was pursuing Penguin's site, which I admit is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, I stumbled onto a reading journey that one of Penguin's employees embarked upon.  

Apparently a few employees decided to do this several years ago, but Alan Walker, a senior executive, has extended his commitment by picking one author per letter of the alphabet and then writes about it.   This is his second time through the alphabet; here is his first marathon.

I think this sounds kind of fun...no time limit on reading them, but going A-Z.
One question remains...which novels would I pick to read? 


Thursday, May 6, 2010

Graphic Penguin Classics







Not only did Penguin recently decide to commission tattoo artists for a series of books, but they have recently released a 25-edition set of classics with covers designed by graphic artists.  Here are a few of my favorites, but I want each and every one of these as well!!!


Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Penguin Ink Series







Just saw in my May Bazaar that Penguin recently
 commissioned several tattoo artists for an upcoming series.  
Though I've only heard of two of these novels (can you guess which?), I still want to 
collect them.
  What a great idea!

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Happy Birthday Nancy Drew

Nancy Drew is 80 years old today!  I read a few growing up, but the real sleuth in the family was always my sister.  She loves mystery and suspense...and once I realized that I wouldn't have bad dreams*** reading Nancy, I enjoyed them myself.

A gorgeous cover for her 80th bday.



This starter set containing the first six books is a perfect idea for a new reader.




Did you ever read Nancy Drew?

***I watched Cape Fear with Robert DeNiro when I was 14, and I had to sleep in my sister's room for two weeks.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

2010 Pulitzers

Here they are folks!

2010 Pulitzer for Fiction:

by Paul Harding

A description from Powell's Bookstore:
An old man lies dying. Confined to bed in his living room, he sees the walls around him begin to collapse, the windows come loose from their sashes, and the ceiling plaster fall off in great chunks, showering him with a lifetime of debris: newspaper clippings, old photographs, wool jackets, rusty tools, and the mangled brass works of antique clocks. Soon, the clouds from the sky above plummet down on top of him, followed by the stars, till the black night covers him like a shroud. He is hallucinating, in death throes from cancer and kidney failure.
A methodical repairer of clocks, he is now finally released from the usual constraints of time and memory to rejoin his father, an epileptic, itinerant peddler, whom he had lost 7 decades before. In his return to the wonder and pain of his impoverished childhood in the backwoods of Maine, he recovers a natural world that is at once indifferent to man and inseparable from him, menacing and awe inspiring.
Tinkers is about the legacy of consciousness and the porousness of identity from one generation the next. At once heartbreaking and life affirming, it is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, and the fierce beauty of nature.


2010 Pulitzer for Poetry:

by Rae Armentrout


Per usual, I've never heard of either of these.  
Have you read any of the works?  Any of them interest you?


FYI:
Pulitzer for Nonfiction
Pulitzer for History 
Pulitzer for Biography

An exhaustive list here.