Pre-Christmas Anticipation

This last week before Christmas is one of the best in the whole year: so full of anticipation, of purpose, and of gathering surprises and treats for friends and family.  This is the time of year to dig out the classics, and relish the extremes of bleakness and surfeit winter-themed literature can offer.

I've just re-read Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, and am still instantly transported to that stark Massachusetts landscape by the description of a place where "day after day, after the December snows were over, a blazing blue sky poured down torrents of light and air on the white landscape, whcih gave them back in an intenser glitter."  Mattie's cherry coloured scarf, and the red pickle dish, stand out like warning beacons of colour in this colour-starved context.  It's a dramatic story, with a terrible twist at the end, and it is so well-written that the sadness you are left with haunts for days afterwards.  Thoroughly recommended for winter reading - especially if you get the beautiful, tactile Penguin English Library edition. 

The cover design on this series are stunning, and the production values make them a pleasure to hold and to read.  Coralie Bickford-Smith is the designer, and she has managed to keep the covers identifiably in the Penguin tradition, but strikingly different, too.  The Independent quotes Penguin's publishing director Simon Winder as saying that he "decided to revive the series as he walked around Tate Britain one day last year, and saw people in their late teens sketching the works. 'It made me think how wonderful it would be not to have read books such as Wuthering Heights yet, and how I thought I had a duty to make this prospect as attractive as possible.'" The font is Dante MT Std, a clean, serif font with a roundness to the letters that makes it easy on the eye.



Reviewers were quick to scrutinize the choice of 100 titles for the initial relaunch of the series this year, The Guardian noting that "the 2012 English Library so far is less keen on fact, more keen on fantasy. Is this a fair reflection of our contemporary state of letters?"  Have a look at the list, and see if you agree.  Will this list stand the test of time (and provoke sales?)

Design matters.  Bibliotherapy is more powerful wrapped in great design, and Penguin have struck a mightily effective blow in the argument for the superiority of the physical book over the digital with this lovely series.  As I was writing this entry, my package from another great design company, Emma Bridgewater, arrived.  Now I have my books AND my Christmas mug to fill with mulled goodness to accompany them!  All set for winter and Christmas now!