PenguinRecensioni

It has some witty illustrations but they do get rather repetitive and progressively more tired the more you flick through. A good stocking filler type of present but overall really rather underwhelming½

Me: I'm not going to buy books till I finish reading everything I own.
Also me: Haven't bought a book for almost a year so let's get this boxset during the festive sale as a treat for self-control.

Meanwhile, my TBR pile is getting taller with Audible, StoryTel, Scribd, Kindle Unlimited and O'Reilly Learning subscriptions as well as books from NetGalley and Edelweiss .

Planning to read these books slowly and review them in their individual pages. Here's my Bookstagram with a picture of this Penguin 80 Little Black Classics Collection: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGm2CpsHC7q/

Fun for kids

The first volume of the "illustrated quarterly" The Yellow Book went to print in 1894. The declared aim of its "Publishers and Editors" was to create a publication which would be not just a "magazine" but a collectable book - "a book with style, a book with finish". Aubrey Beardsley's appointment as arts editor also gave this publication the frisson of controversy. Beardsley's sojourn in France had brought him close to the "aesthetic movement" and his blank ink drawings, emphasizing the sexual and the grotesque, seemed to ooze a sense of fin-de-siecle decadence. Indeed, the choice of a "yellow cover" was itself a knowing reference to French racy magazines, whose yellow cover warned prospective buyers of their erotic content. The quarterly achieved its peak of notoriety in April 1895, when Oscar Wilde was arrested whilst allegedly carrying a copy. Beardsley, a collaborator of the author, was promptly sacked, but the magazine managed to continue until 1897.

In actual fact, the stories and poems featured in the periodical were rarely as shocking as the cover promised they would be. What was undisputed was their quality and variety - amongst the contributors were leading authors such as John Buchan, H.G. Wells and W.B. Yeats, writing in a variety of styles. Ample space was given to female writers, including Ella D'Arcy and Ethel Mayne (who also served as sub-editors).

A good indication of the "Yellow Book"'s range is given by this selection issued as part of the second wave of Penguin "Little Black Books" - it consists of four stories and four poems accompanied by a smattering of Beardsley drawings. Mrs Ernest Leverson's "Suggestion" is the closest we get to the world of Wilde - its barbed wit and cynical view of marriage and relationships is calculated to shock us with its amorality. It is immediately followed by Arthur Symons's poem "Stella Maris" - an explicit description of a night of love which must have raised several Victorian eyebrows and likely singed them in the process. None of the other pieces are as controversial. John Buchan's supernatural tale "A Journey of Little Profit" is a delightful piece of diablerie, Ella D'Arcy's "The Pleasure-Pilgrim" is a tragicomedy with a bittersweet taste to it, Arnold Bennett's "A Letter Home" is a Maupassant-like slice of realism with a crushingly cruel ending. The collection also includes poems by Katharine de Mattos, Edmund Gosse and a typically dense and metaphor-laden work by W.B.Yeats.

This is an enjoyable compilation which gives a tantalising taste of the cultural phenomenon that was "The Yellow Book". If I give it only three stars, it is because it is difficult to replicate, in a different format, a periodical which gave such great attention to its design and presentation.

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Enjoyed it immensly, now I want to read more fin-de-siecle works!

A short overview of the classic cynic philosophy and it’s main representatives through contemporary writings.½

The best one must be 'There's always the Swiss option' by Kipper Williams on page 35.

This is a short book, which contains extracts from writings by or about the Cynic philosophers. It consists of three main sections: a dialogue in which a Cynic philosopher attempts to justify his way of life, and in particular his shunning of material goods, to another speaker; a collection of quotes and anecdotes from various writers about the philosopher Diogenes; and an extract about the life of Bion.

Although short, this was an interesting read about a topic I knew little about. I would have liked a little more background information and explanation, but it was still interesting to read.½

Being a fan of sf cover art, I was anxious to see the postcards included in this collection. I must say I'm rather disappointed. The vast array of artwork available to Penguin/Ace/et al is voluminous, and yet, most of the works in this box are dull and uninteresting. Granted, there are some gems, i.e., "Make Room! Make Room!" but then you've got covers which consist of blocks of a single color, monotonous text and the Penguin logo, i.e., "Last and First Men". (I get that these are Penguin books, but yeesh! Could you TRY to get some creatively graphic and in some cases that I've seen on some sf of the past, psychedelic covers? I KNOW you've got them!). And could it have killed you to reproduce the back cover blurbs somewhere on the back?
Ultimately, sf art boils down to one emotion for me: if it doesn't make me go "Oo! Neat!" it's not worth it. No "Oo!"s. No "Neat!"s. No fun.

Penguin always find a way of making their catalogues interesting and readable. I think it is because they are presented like a magazine, crammed with interesting articles on great writers and abstract editorials on War, Psychology or even Fighting Fantasy, to give a few examples.
Full colour, and with hundreds of photos of the actual book covers to drool over. My wife jokingly called it a porn mag for bibliophiles the other day! I can't argue with that. ;)

The Fiftieth Anniversary issue of the Penguin Booklist catalogue, that listed every book in print at the time of issue.

The three column page layout is elegantly interspersed with short stylish writer biographies and graphics - very cool!

Also included in the introduction is a page long history of how Penguin began from a few handfuls of paperbacks sold in Woolworths stores for just sixpence, through it's rise to dominate the popular paperback market.

Complete with it's original loose leaf yellow Priority Order Form, and a full colour flyer advertising the free Fifty Penguin Years Exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall on London's South Bank that ran from 21 September - 27 October 1985.

A great piece of book memorabilia.

This is a Complimentary Sampler - From the Penguin Group
It includes excerpts from "What the World is reading"!
This little gem includes - Angelology (by Danielle Trussoni); The Beach Trees (by Karen White); Girl in Translation (by Jean Kwok); The Help (by Kathryn Stockett); How to be an American Housewife (by Margaret Dilloway); My name is Mary Sutter (by Robin Oliveria); My Name is Memory (by Ann Brashares); The Postmistress (by Sarah Blake) and The Solitude of Prime Numbers (by Paolo Giordano). a stimulating sample taken from each book which leaves you salivating for the whole story.....

A book review of a catalog? Why not. It is indeed a very niice catalog. Some of the classics offered by Penguin are fairly obscure. This made this compendium (of couple-sentence-long summaries) that much more enjoyable.

I just love books about books.½

I learned about the iPhone App for this little gem on Twitter, but I don't have an iPhone. But I do have a good friend who works for Penguin Publishing, so when I couldn't locate this book at my local library, I asked my friend to send me a copy.

What a find! Penguin has published an annotated catalog of all their books that any bookworm is bound to absolutely love.

Over 1,300 titles are arranged alphabetically by author--many with the cover art (in B&W), names of contributors such as translators, introduction authors and editors; the annotation (synopsis), page numbers, ISBN, and price. The Listing itself is 328 pages and also includes a title index, an author index broken out by geographic region, Nobel Prize in Literature winners, and subject categories.

And guess what? The Listing is FREE. That's right, FREE. Now, Amazon.com is asking $7 and it's definitely worth it, but if you can get this baby for free, why not? Or if you have an iPhone, you can download the app and have it at your fingertips. Personally, I'm a brick-and-mortar bookstore, paper book kind of a gal, so I'm thrilled with the one I now have.

This book will give any booklover hours of browsing enjoyment. Don't know what to read next? Go through the Listing. Have to research works by a specific author? Check out the Listing. Want to read the Penguin Classics of a certain region, for example Africa? See the Listing. I guarantee this little book can go toe-to-toe with any bestseller for keeping you up past your bedtime. There is so much to discover inside these pages.

Hallelujah, I have hit the browsing jackpot!

it's fantastic story. Talks about the consequences of infidelity.

A nicely illustrated celebration of Penguin books coming of age. Back cover shows a man smoking a pipe in a bookshop.

Each tale is brilliantly read by a different famous actor or actress. I never get time to re-read or even read classics and this way I can listen in the car. I must admit I don't like all the stories. Crime and Punishment bored me and I found Frankenstein tedious too. But it was a treasure to have all those books together.

A classified list of all books published by Penguin Books up to the end of December 1961. There is a 1-2 line description of each book, or in some cases, of the series. There is also a list of forthcoming books from January to June 1962.

a book of book lists for those of us who keep making book lists--back when i was in the trades--it's actually just penguin's catalagog from the time--don't know why i keep hanging on to it--maybe because its thin?½

2001 Jan 01

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