BEAUTIFUL TRIBUTE

Further praise for The Man who Loved Children will be found in a book which should go on your Christmas present lists. I know it's only July, but with our alloted fortnight of sunshine apparently over, I make no apologies for using the C word.

In December Beautiful Books are publishing a book by John Waters - Role Models - in which there is a chapter devoted to his favourite books, within which the author lists Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children as one of the novels which most influenced him. Mr. Waters has tickled many of our cinematic fancies with films such as Hairspray and Pink Flamingos. He is illustrated opposite.

I didn't know much about this publisher before they alerted me to Waters' book, but their website revealed a very interesting publications list, ranging from Dario Fo to Anthony Burgess, and is well worth taking your mouse to.

David

TINY BUT PERFECTLY SMALL

Apologies for the Blog lacuna - I wrote a series of Pulitzer-quality articles, but my virtual dog ate them before they could be posted.

Great excitement was unleashed in the Capuchin office today (above the quotidian variety associated with working for such a vibrant and chic publisher) as The Guardian published an on-line piece about The Man who Loved Children. This all stems from the New York Times article by Jonathan Franzen (see previous blog) which has caused ripples of renewed interest in this extraordinary book to spread through the ether.

We are described in the article, for which many thanks must go to Alison Flood, as

tiny press Capuchin Classics, an imprint dedicated to "reviving great works of fiction which have been unjustly forgotten or neglected"

Call us wildly ambitious, but one day we hope to be small.

David

THE MAN WHO LOVES THE MAN WHO LOVED CHILDREN

The New York Times recently published a lengthy celebration of this book by the renowned contemporary author Jonathan Franzen.

Mr. Franzen writes:

Although its prose ranges from good to fabulously good — is lyrical in the true sense, every observation and description bursting with feeling, meaning, subjectivity — and although its plotting is unobtrusively masterly, the book operates at a pitch of psychological violence that makes “Revolutionary Road” look like “Everybody Loves Raymond."

and meditates at length on the reasons why the novel is not as recognised as it deserves to be. The essay is replete with erudition and wit, and makes some fascinating observations on the whole business of publishing and reading novels and places this book in the context of literature in general and several specific related novelists and novels.

David