Classics

The Princess of 72nd Street by Elaine Kraf

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The Princess of 72nd Street

A New York radiance

It’s 1970’s New York, and 72nd Street is a vibrant enclave of arty types, one of whom is struggling artist, Ellen, an abstract expressionist in more than one sense. Sometimes Ellen thinks all she needs is a solvent and dependable husband, but then the ‘radiance’ will arrive, a period of euphoric mania, and her alter-ego Princess Esmerelda takes over. At such times, bedecked in flamboyant outfits, she steps out amongst her people, in search of adventure. First published in 1979 and ripe for rediscovery, The Princess of 72nd Street by Elaine Kraf is a wryly astute exploration of notions of female propriety and soundness of mind.

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Maurice by E.M. Forster

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Maurice

The love that dares to speak its name

The opening decades of the 21st century have witnessed an amazing boomtime in the world of Young Adult literature. All of life is here in its messy complexity, ripe for exploration and taboo-busting, and with a stroke of genius, Faber & Faber have introduced a classic into the mix, in the form of a YA-friendly edition of Maurice by E. M. Forster. The original text is presented in an illustrated hardcover format, and traces a young man’s homosexual and political awakening in English Edwardian society. Both a commentary on repression and hypocrisy and the tenderest of love stories, this minor classic is ripe for rediscovery.

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Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

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Farenheit 451

Scarily prescient sci-fi

Enormous TV screens airing game shows all day, a robot with a mind of its own, persecuted academics, banned books, school shootings, communication through earpieces – sound familiar?  Written in 1953 during the dark days of McCarthyism, American classic Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a scarily prescient sci-fi novel that will leave you gobsmacked.

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Birds as Individuals by Len Howard

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Birds as Individuals

Flights of joy

A delightful read for fans of nature writing, bird life, and old-school English eccentrics, the 1952 book, Birds as Individuals by Len Howard has been deservedly reprinted as a Vintage Classic. The author, Gwendolen (Len) Howard left her life as an orchestral musician in London in the late 1930’s, to pursue her calling as a naturalist in the Sussex countryside. Here, she built a small house, Bird Cottage, threw the doors and windows open to the birds of her garden, and lived the rest of her days in intimate observation of her avian housemates and (literal) bedfellows.

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Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban

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Turtle Diary

Seeing the world through turtle-coloured glasses

Celebrating fifty years since publication, the exquisite modern classic, Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban, is a bittersweet story of loneliness, ennui and renewal in 1970’s London. It’s told through the alternate diary entries of soon-to-be acquaintances, William and Neaera, a forty-something bookseller and children’s author respectively. Both lead quiet, solitary lives, enlivened by regular visits to London Zoo, and both are drawn to its giant sea turtle aquarium, a wretchedly confining ‘glass box of second-hand ocean’. Compelled to set them free, they join forces and embark on a touching and richly metaphorical mission to release them into the open sea.

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Ex-Wife by Ursual Parrott

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Ex-Wife

Brilliantly pithy observations of 1920’s American womanhood

It’s the Roaring Twenties and Patricia is living the Jazz Age dream in New York. Hers is a cosmopolitan life of smoky nightclubs and cocktail parties, with the added bonus of a sexually liberated husband. But at the age of just twenty-four, Patricia finds herself unglamorously dumped, after her ‘theoretically modern’ husband, Peter leaves her. Apparently, any agreed sexual freedoms had applied only to him, and so, when Patricia reveals an amorous liaison, she is spurned and forced to build a new life as a not-so-merry divorcée. Labelled scandalous and sensational upon publication in 1929, Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott portrays a generation eager for a permissive society but mired in double standards.

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The Children's Bach by Helen Garner

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The Children’s Bach

Domesticity and desire in suburban Melbourne

The splendid W&N Essentials series is a carefully curated collection of books considered to have stood the test of time, and been adored by their first readers. The Children’s Bach by Helen Garner is one of its brightest stars, a spare and fearless novel, highly acclaimed in the author’s native Australia in 1984, but curiously, only now feeling the love in the U.K. Set in suburban Melbourne in the early 1980’s, it’s the story of Dexter and Athena Fox and some blast-from-the past visitors, whose presence causes the Fox’s cosy domesticity to unravel into fantasy, escapism, and moral dilemma.

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The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb

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The Night of the Hunter

A deliciously eerie slice of period piece Americana

Brooding 1953 cult favourite, The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb is perhaps better known for its darkly expressionistic film adaptation, starring Robert Mitchum. For film fans seeking out the book, Mitchum’s charismatic, menacing performance as Harry Powell, self-proclaimed preacher and depraved soul, inevitably sears itself onto the page, a character with evil intent from the moment we first meet him, plotting to lay his hands on a bank robber’s loot. In Grubb’s nightmarish Southern Gothic cat-and-mouse tale, a classic contest of good versus evil is underway, as the preacher’s predilection for seduction, theft and murder is resisted by a lionhearted boy and his little sister.

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Death in Spring by MercDeath in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda

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Death in Spring

Cryptic Catalan tale of tyranny and submission

In an isolated village in the Catalan mountains, an adolescent boy goes for a dip in the local river, swimming downstream to the nearby forest. Here, in the leafy half-light, amidst an ominous clustering of butterflies and bees, he witnesses his father carve open a tree and fold himself into it, in anticipation of certain death. A highlight of the marvellous Penguin European Writers collection, Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda is a bildungsroman unlike any other, a surreal tale of oppression, ritual and exile, with a nod to the darkest folklore.

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Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke

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Lord Jim at Home

Unmistakably English horrors

Upon its original publication in 1973, Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke was described by one reviewer as ‘squalid and startling’, adjectives that immediately render it irresistible, and also prove to be true in a singularly impressive way. It tells the life story of Giles Trenchard, a very particular type of Englishman. Ostensibly the product of a privileged interwar upbringing of chauffeurs, nannies, and public school, Giles’ life to date has been blighted by a cast of grotesques and persistent emotional abuse. Stepping into adulthood with a damaged spirit and a wavering moral compass, it’s only a matter of time before calamity strikes.

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