Which 3 classics would you buy as part of our 3-for-2 offer?
This month we’re offering a special 3-for-the-price-of-2 offer on our Vintage Classics range. We asked our staff which 3 classics they would buy. Here are their responses.
Alan Vaarwerk, Editorial Assistant of Readings Monthly:
The controversy surrounding Frank Hardy’s Power Without Glory is legendary, and while I’ve read about the barely fictionalised political figures and subsequent court case, I’ve never read the book itself, which has become such a large part of Australian literary history. Also, apart from a few famous short stories, Hemingway is also a writer who I’ve somehow missed up to now. The Essential Hemingway looks like a great way to get up to speed.
Finally, I first read Catch-22 in high school when I was just starting to discover satire, so I’d like to revisit it and see what went over my naive little head. The copy I have at the moment belonged to my dad, and is so battered that the pages don’t hold together anymore!
Nina Kenwood, Digital Marketing Manager:
I’ve wanted to read The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins ever since I read a Nora Ephron essay in which she raved about it thusly: ‘And finally, one day I read the book that is probably the most rapturous book of my adult life. On a chaise lounge at the beach on a beautiful summer day, I open Wilkie Collins’s masterpiece, The Woman in White, probably the first great work of mystery fiction ever written (although that description hardly does it justice), and I am instantly lost to the world. Days pass as I savor every word. Each minute I spend away from the book pretending to be interested in everyday life is a misery. How could I have waited so long to read this book? When can I get back to it?’
How could you not want to read the book after that? Frankly, in my opinion, there’s no greater endorsement than a Nora Ephron endorsement.
I would also buy a Richard Yates novel because last year I read The Easter Parade and it deeply impressed and disturbed me. Probably Young Hearts Crying is the next Yates I plan to tackle (I’ve already read Revolutionary Road). And finally, I would buy I Capture the Castle because I love, love, love that book so much, and I’ve lost my copy of it.
Isobel Moore, Children’s Book Buyer:
Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald. As a long time F. Scott Fitzgerald fan I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t read Zelda’s novel. I very much enjoy the period and would like to get to know the other half of the intriguing Fitzgeralds.
The Cave by José Saramago. I originally intended to read Saramago during a trip to Lisbon a couple of years ago, but… everything he wrote seemed a little… intense for a holiday read… Still, I’ve been wanting to read him ever since and what better time to start than now.
The Sun King by Nancy Mitford. I just read her biography of Madame De Pompador and it was thrilling. Mitford is effortlessly sassy about real historical events and just opinionated enough to give it a little edge. At one point in time she spoke of Paris’ modern skyline and the ‘rusty’ Eiffel Tower, and I hope that a look at Louis XIV might be equally amusing.
Emily Gale, Online Children’s Specialist:
I’d choose one I want to re-read and two I’ve never read before. For the re-read it would be a new copy of Margaret Atwood’s stunning The Handmaid’s Tale, which someone borrowed from me c.1995 and never gave back. I think this book stands out in my memory largely because my high school reading list was so male-dominated, so to read this at university was a profound discovery. As an aside, it was on the American Library Association’s ‘Most Banned Books’ list, which I’ve decided is generally a sign of good quality.
I loved Toni Morrison’s first novel The Bluest Eye but have never read Beloved, so that would be my next choice. Recently I read a wonderful interview with Toni Morrison in which she talked about the multiple small regrets she has about her personal life (stuff to do with parenting and friendships, mostly) and I found that very refreshing. When people say they have no regrets I always think: how?
Morrison also had this to say about writing, which I loved: ‘The writing is — I’m free from pain. It’s the place where I live; it’s where I have control; it’s where nobody tells me what to do; it’s where my imagination is fecund and I am really at my best. Nothing matters more in the world or in my body or anywhere when I’m writing. It is dangerous because I’m thinking up dangerous, difficult things, but it is also extremely safe for me to be in that place.’
(You can find the full interview here.)
Finally, I’m wrestling with my own novel that features a bit of time travel so I’d love to read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Yesterday I watched a short video called ‘Kurt Vonnegut On The Shapes Of Stories’, which cheered me out of my writing gloom.
Stella Charls, Marketing and Events Coordinator:
I have a pretty huge complex about how few classics I’ve read and am easily overwhelmed at the giant game of catch-up ahead of me. But Richard Yates definitely tops the list. He’s quoted as saying, 'I’m only interested in stories that are about the crushing of the human heart’ – what more could you ask for as a reader, really? Plus, I’m sick of people with excellent taste imploring me to read his books: my colleague Jason talked about how (and why) he reads a Yates novel every year here while another colleague Nina described how much her first foray into Yates affected her here.
I’m keen to start with The Easter Parade but would love Revolutionary Road (I adored Sam Mendes’ 2008 film) and Eleven Kind of Loneliness (Vonnegut called it the best short-story collection ever written by an American) on my shelf as well. Happily, I also think the Vintage covers for Yates’ books are particularly lovely, which matters more to me than I care to admit.
