Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) New Directions, 1946 My friend Margaret put me onto Nathanael West, which is ironic because it was by virtue of her not having recognized his name in a discussion of literary masterpieces; she was relieved that I hadn't heard of him either. Ignorance loves company, even
Suzette Mayr's Venous Hum Arsenal Pulp, 2004 Yes, that's right: it's a mouth. Somehow too many canines, pink fleshy tongue: it's the cover of Venous Hum. Eye-catching from the start, but it makes more sense after you've finished reading. "It's an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence announcing the end
Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking (1945) Trans. Florence Lamborn Illus. Louis S. Glanzman NY: Viking Press, 1950 My copy of Pippi Longstocking is a bookclub edition, one of several that my mother ordered for me when I was a girl. What sets Pippi (and Rudyard Kipling's Kim) apart in this series, however, is the
Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days (1873) Illus. Jame's Prunier Trans. Barbara Brister "The Whole Story" Viking, 1996 I discovered "The Whole Story" editions one Saturday afternoon browsing in the Children's Library. They're lavishly illustrated: think, annotations in photographs. (Unfortunately I couldn't find the corresponding cover image that
William Golding's The Lord of the Flies (1954) This was the last of my four reads for Dewey's Read-a-Thon, so if you are one of the many people who complain about having had to read The Lord of the Flies in school, just imagine reading it for the first time in
