Synopses & Reviews
The coveted and award-winning Penguin Threads series continues with three more enchanting, beautifully sewn covers by a talented visual artist
With paper and pen or needle and thread, storytelling has many traditions. Penguin's award-winning art director Paul Buckley presents Penguin Threads, a series of Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions inspired by the aesthetic of handmade crafts with specially commissioned cover art. Jillian Tamaki's embroidered artwork appears on The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Emma by Jane Austen, and Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. This latest set features three beloved classics for both adults and children with cover art by painter and illustrator Rachell Sumpter.
Sketched in a traditional illustrative manner, the final covers are sculpt embossed and present full front and reverse hand-stitched designs. Through story, style and texture, the Penguin Threads is an exciting chapter in Penguin's long history of excellence in book design, for true lovers of the book, design, and handcrafted beauty.
Meek little Mole, willful Ratty, Badger the perennial bachelor, and petulant Toad. In the more than one hundred years since their first appearance in 1908, they've become emblematic archetypes of eccentricity, folly, and friendship. And their misadventures–in gypsy caravans, stolen sports cars, and their beloved Wild Wood- continue to capture readers' imaginations and warm their hearts long after they grow up. The Wind in the Willows is a timeless tale of animal cunning and human camaraderie.
Review
“With a dazzling new cover and smart new introduction, one of my favorite novels,
Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara, is reborn. . . . This novel about class, drinking and sex is fun—and incredibly smart.” —
Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune
“[A] gorgeous new edition . . . Appointment in Samarra still astonishes and amazes; and [OHaras] style and themes—a bridge, if you will, between F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Updike—remain painfully and beautifully relevant today.” —Huffington Post
“Suspenseful, character-driven—it deserves to be read more.” —Joshua Ferris, Details
“Transfixing . . . A Jazz Age novel set amidst the early throes of the Depression . . . A striking antidote to contemporary novels like Nathanael Wests Miss Lonelyhearts and Erskine Caldwells Tobacco Road, which remain startling for their implacably cynical view of humanity. OHara offers a more nuanced, and more subversive view of the national mood at the cusp of the Depression.” —Nathaniel Rich, The Daily Beast
“Nobody whos read it ever forgets Appointment in Samarra.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“An attractive new edition of Samarra, with deckled edges and a jazzy cover.” —The Philadelphia Review of Books
“If you want to read a book by a man who knows exactly what he is writing about and has written it marvelously well, read Appointment in Samarra.” —Ernest Hemingway
“Appointment in Samarra lives frighteningly in the mind.” —John Updike
“It is alive with compelling characters and OHaras dead-on dialogue and sharp observations.” —Chicago Tribunes Printers Row
“[OHara] was as acute a social observer as Fitzgerald, as spare a stylist as Hemingway, and in his creation of Gibbsville, in western Pennsylvania, he invented a kind of small-bore variation on Faulkners Yoknapatawpha County.” —Los Angeles Times
“An author I love is John OHara. . . . I think hes been forgotten by time, but for dialogue lovers, hes a goldmine of inspiration.” —Douglas Coupland, Shelf Awareness
“OHara was one of Moms favorite authors. . . . ‘So I finally read Appointment in Samarra, I told her. ‘I'd always thought that book had something to do with Iraq. . . . ‘It does apply to Iraq, even if thats not at all what its about. Its a book about setting things in motion and then being too proud and stubborn to apologize and to change course. ” —from The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
Synopsis
Lewis Carroll's brilliantly timeless tales--in a deluxe 150th-anniversary edition.
Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read Original, experimental, and unparalleled in their charm, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There have enchanted readers for generations. The topsy-turvy dream worlds of Wonderland and the Looking-Glass realm are full of the unexpected: A baby turns into a pig, time stands still at a "mad" tea-party, and a chaotic game of chess turns seven-year-old Alice into a queen. These unforgettable tales--filled with sparkling wordplay and unbridled imagination--balance joyous nonsense with poignant moments of longing for the lost innocence of childhood.
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Synopsis
A deluxe edition of Lewis Carroll's timeless tale of wondrously charming nonsense, in time for its 150th anniversary
When Alice follows the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole, little does she know that she is traveling to a world of magic where common-sense is turned upside-down. The dream worlds of nonsensical Wonderland and the backwards Looking-Glass kingdom are full of the unexpected: a baby turns into a pig, time is missing at a tea-party, and a wild chess game makes the seven-year-old Alice a queen. Displaying Lewis Carroll's gift for sparkling wordplay, puzzles, and riddles, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass offer magical adventure, pointed satire of Victorian England, and playful explorations of sophisticated logic. Yet amid Carroll's antic humor and joyful creation, poignant moments of nostalgia for fleeting childhood give the stories extraordinary emotional depth. And wherever Carroll takes Alice, John Tenniel's iconic illustrations follow with whimsical depictions of her tizzying journeys. Original, experimental, and unparalleled for pure delight, the adventures of Alice in Wonderland are tales to be read and shared across generations.
Synopsis
The writer whom Fran Lebowitz compared to the author of The Great Gatsby, calling him the real F. Scott Fitzgerald,” makes his Penguin Classics debut with this beautiful deluxe edition of his best-loved book.
One of the great novels of small-town American life, Appointment in Samarra is John OHaras crowning achievement. In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, social circuit is electrified with parties and dances. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction.
Brimming with wealth and privilege, jealousy and infidelity, OHaras iconic first novel is an unflinching look at the dark side of the American dreamand a lasting testament to the keen social intelligence if a major American writer.
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Synopsis
When
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was first published in 1865, it set critics awry: here was a book for children written for the pure pleasure of reading. It has since become one of the most famous children's books ever, translated into many different languages, performed as a play, and made into a popular Disney animated film.
Synopsis
A striking deluxe edition commemorating the 40th anniversary of Erica Jongs groundbreaking classic
Before Hannah from Girls, Anastasia Steele from Fifty Shades of Grey, and Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City, there was Isadora Wing, the uninhibited, outspoken protagonist of Erica Jongs revolutionary novel. First published in 1973, Fear of Flying caused a national sensation, fueling fantasies, igniting debates about women and sex, and introducing a notorious phrase to the English language. Forty years later, Isadoras honest and exuberant retelling of her sexual adventuresand misadventurescontinues to provoke and inspire, and stands as an iconic tale of self-discovery, liberation, and womanhood. With provocative cover art by illustrator Noma Bar, this special fortieth-anniversary edition will introduce a new generation of women to Jongs pioneering novel.
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Synopsis
Lewis Carrolls brilliantly timeless talesin a deluxe 150th-anniversary edition Original, experimental, and unparalleled in their charm, Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There have enchanted readers for generations. The topsy-turvy dream worlds of Wonderland and the Looking-Glass realm are full of the unexpected: A baby turns into a pig, time stands still at a mad” tea-party, and a chaotic game of chess turns seven-year-old Alice into a queen. These unforgettable talesfilled with sparkling wordplay and unbridled imaginationbalance joyous nonsense with poignant moments of longing for the lost innocence of childhood.
About the Author
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll, was a man of diverse interests - in mathematics, logic, photography, art, theater, religion, medicine, and science. He was happiest in the company of children for whom he created puzzles, clever games, and charming letters.
As all Carroll admirers know, his book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), became an immediate success and has since been translated into more than eighty languages. The equally popular sequel Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, was published in 1872.
The Alice books are but one example of his wide ranging authorship. The Hunting of the Snark, a classic nonsense epic (1876) and Euclid and His Modern Rivals, a rare example of humorous work concerning mathematics, still entice and intrigue today's students. Sylvie and Bruno, published toward the end of his life contains startling ideas including an 1889 description of weightlessness.
The humor, sparkling wit and genius of this Victorian Englishman have lasted for more than a century. His books are among the most quoted works in the English language, and his influence (with that of his illustrator, Sir John Tenniel) can be seen everywhere, from the world of advertising to that of atomic physics.Charlie Lovett is a writer, a teacher, and a playwright. He and his wife split their time between Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Kingham, Oxfordshire, in England.