NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys

You may know him as the writer of The Scarlet Letter, but he wrote other interesting books, among them, this one for children... and lovers of children's books.


Six legends of Greek mythology, retold for children by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Included are The Gorgon’s Head, The Golden Touch, The Paradise of Children, The Three Golden Apples, The Miraculous Pitcher, and The Chimaera.

In 1838, Hawthorne suggested to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that they collaborate on a story for children based on the legend of the Pandora’s Box, but this never materialized.

He wrote A Wonder Book between April and July 1851, adapting six legends most freely from Charles Anton’s A Classical Dictionary (1842).

He set out deliberately to “modernize” the stories, freeing them from what he called “cold moonshine” and using a romantic, readable style that was criticized by adults but proved universally popular with children.

Don't you just love children's books? As for me, I must get my hands on this one.

VALENTINE'S DAY BOOKS

At this point in time, lots of bookshops, libraries and dealers are writing their lists suggesting books to buy for VALENTINE'S DAY.

Here are several websites for you to check, in case you're interested in surprising your loved one with something other than/together with chocolates or red roses:

- 5 Best Relationship Books for Valentine's Day (here).

- 10 Perfect Books for Valentine's Day gifts (here).

- Top 10 hottest Valentine's day books for kids (here). (Come on! I can't believe they're involving kids in this too...).

CHARLES DICKENS'S DOODLE

Google is using its Google Doodle Tuesday to commemorate the 200th birthday of novelist Charles Dickens. While the Doodles in the past have traditionally linked to search results based on the illustration’s subject, this one does it a bit differently: top billing is given to free e-book results from the Google Books service.

Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 and over his 58 years penned some of the most well known literary works of the 19th Century. Google’s doodle is a collage of some notable characters within his books, including Great Expectations and Oliver Twist.

“Our Google Books editorial team curated a collection of free and featured Dickens classics available in the Google eBookstore in Dickens’ native land (United Kingdom) and some Commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia) as well as the US”, Google eBooks Associate Ariel Levine writes in a blog post describing the doodle, and its move to promote Google Books.

It’s probably not too far fetched to assume that most Google users — save for tech enthusiasts — are likely unaware that the Mountain View, Calif. company even has a e-book service. That said, you cannot blame Google for wanting to use the Google doodle as an engine to heighten the service’s profile and generate traffic.

Google Doodle stories do extremely well for bloggers and tech news sites alike. This has a lot to do with Google user’s curiosity and clicking on the illustrations to see what it’s about. Oftentimes the news stories covering the doodles themselves make it to the first results page people see, and users do click.

That won’t be happening today: the first page is entirely results from Google Books.

From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/249466/googles_dickens_doodle_gives_google_books_top_billing.html

Don't you just love it?

Reviews of THE UNCOMMON READER

For all those who have read Alan Bennet's novella, here you have a link with a good deal of reviews from various British and American newspapers.

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/bennetta/unreader.htm

Take a look at the extracts below, do you agree with them?

The staggeringly prodigious Bennett (...) has fun with the writers and books the queen relishes (and doesn't). Avid readers will enjoy his playful erudition in this entertaining reminder as to why we read and write." - Terry Hong, Christian Science Monitor

"The Uncommon Reader is a delight. Reading it over a morning and evening’s tube-struck commute, I never stopped smiling -- only a right royal churl could declare himself not amused by Bennett’s comic wizardry (.....) His storytelling, though, is rather less magical. (...) But the real problem is that The Uncommon Reader disobeys its own diktats, failing utterly to dramatise the Queen’s sentimental education." - Christopher Bray, Financial Times

"In its witty, economical satire, The Uncommon Reader recalls the late work of Muriel Spark, whose The Finishing School sent up the business of publishing. Like Spark, Bennett relies on plot twists that strain credulity at every turn, but the book is such a romp, it doesn't matter." - Maud Newton, The Los Angeles Times

"(T)he scenario begins to lose steam well before the novella's 120 pages are through. The book is neither outrageous nor subversive enough to succeed fully as satire, and at the same time lacks the shading of The History Boys, whose central principle -- knowledge for knowledge's sake -- was rendered with a trace of melancholy and moral ambivalence. At times, it falls back on trite endorsements of the written word (.....) Though The Uncommon Reader is dotted with a few sharp-edged moments such as this, it functions mostly as a lighthearted thought experiment." - Michael Schulman, The New York Sun

"Mr. Bennett’s musings on these matters have produced a delightful little book that unfolds into a witty meditation on the subversive pleasures of reading. (...) In recounting this story of a ruler who becomes a reader, a monarch who’d rather write than reign, Mr. Bennett has written a captivating fairy tale. It’s a tale that’s as charming as the old Gregory Peck-Audrey Hepburn movie Roman Holiday, and as keenly observed as Stephen Frears’s award-winning movie The Queen -- a tale that showcases its author’s customary élan and keen but humane wit." - Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"The story of her budding love affair with literature blends the comic and the poignant so smoothly it can only be by Bennett. It’s not his very best work, but it distills his virtues well enough to suggest how such a distinctive style might have arisen. (...) Like most of Bennett’s fiction, this is a slender work -- an afternoon’s read. Yet even at this length, it feels a trifle thin." - Jeremy McCarter, The New York Times Book Review

"This is not a book that is particularly interested in telling us what the Queen is like. Fair enough; it’s fiction. It is not a book, either, that is particularly interested in imagining plausibly what the Queen might be like. Rather, it vamps round the stock ideas, available to any television sketch show or student revue, of what she is like. (...) What’s different, then, between The Uncommon Reader and any television sketch show or student revue ? The difference is in the sentences. What distinguishes this, and most of Bennett’s work, is not its perceptiveness about the world, or its imaginative achievement, but its droll and exact stylistic commmand. The effect, in this and in much of his work, is to make him the literary equivalent of a brilliant cartoonist." - Sam Leith, The Spectator

"The author’s taste for the camp cliché, his surreal exchanges (...) and the easy satire on management jargon (...) are not intended solely to amuse, but nor do they simply bolster a cosy argument about the civilising benefits of libraries, or a jibe at bestsellers. (...) For all its hilarity The Uncommon Reader has a heartfelt tone. It offers a lament on old age, some thoughts on reticence and a backward glance at a life wasted. At times, it even seems to side with Sir Kevin’s view that reading is a selfish practice." - Lindsay Duguid, Sunday Times

"(A)n exquisitely produced jewel of a book (.....) (I)t would be easy to mistake it for a gentle jeu d’esprit; one of those wry, melancholy slivers of observation at which Bennett excels. It isn’t though. Beneath the tasteful gilt-and-beige cover seethes a savagely Swiftian indignation against stupidity, Philistinism and arrogance in public places, and a passionate argument for the civilising power of art." - Jane Shilling, The Times

"The Uncommon Reader improves delightfully on an otherwise depressing reality, while slily arraigning the ambiguous British romance with the monarchy and its current avatar." - Jonathan Keates, Times Literary Supplement

"The Uncommon Reader is a political and literary satire. But it's also a lovely lesson in the redemptive and subversive power of reading and how one book can lead to another and another and another. (...) The Uncommon Reader is an appreciation of reading not out of obligation, but purely for pleasure, without being preachy and pretentious." - Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today

"What might in less capable hands result in a labored exercise or an embarrassing instance of literary lêse-majesté here becomes a delicious light comedy, as well as a meditation on the power of print. (...) You can finish The Uncommon Reader in an hour or two, but it is charming enough and wise enough that you will almost certainly want to keep it around for rereading -- unless you decide to share it with friends. Either way, this little book offers what English readers would call very good value for money." - Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

Writers bid to revive letter-writing

A gentlemanly riposte to email is being launched by the literary world as Dave Eggers heads a group of authors who are turning instead to the old-fashioned letter.

The critically acclaimed author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is joining in with a new initiative from American arts magazine the Rumpus, which is offering readers the opportunity to receive a letter a week from literary names including Eggers himself, Tao Lin, Stephen Elliott, Nick Flynn, Margaret Cho, Elissa Schappel, Emily Gould and Jonathan Ames. "Think of it as the letters you used to get from your creative friends, before this whole internet/email thing," urged the Rumpus. "Most of the letters will include return addresses (at the author's discretion) in case you want to write the author back."

Read the whole article here.

Being a letter-writer myself, what do I think about this idea? Absolutely GREAT!

McDonald's to give away books with kid's meals

From the red carpet to the golden arches: an unlikely champion in the battle to get children reading has emerged in the shape of McDonald's, which is set to give away nine million books by Michael Morpurgo, author of the smash hit children's novel War Horse, with its Happy Meals.

The fast food chain has linked up with publisher HarperCollins to hand out millions of copies of former children's laureate Morpurgo's Mudpuddle Farm books, aimed at younger readers, along with its Happy Meals, in one of its biggest ever promotions.

Read the whole article here.

What do you think about this initiative?