SUPER NOVA

The Guardian Books blog this Monday carried a well-considered and thought-provoking piece by Robert McCrum, called 'Books that change your world but no-one else's'. Acknowledging that certain books have had a pivotal effect on the world (Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch, for example), McCrum goes on to examine

those books that speak to, and move, us as individual readers, become part of our imaginative landscape, and remain a secret, private pleasure

but which may drift out of the awareness of publishing and reading communities.

Mr. McCrum is then kind enough to mention Capuchin Classics as a publisher who seeks out and revivifies such books, mentioning in particular Craig Nova's superb novel, Incandescence, (which we published in the summer of 2009) as an example of a modern classic that was previously unknown to him.

This Guardian blog is a constant source of interesting news and observation, and it is heartening to see the numerous and lively responses that are being posted as responses to Monday's contribution.

David

GLOWING PRAISE FOR SUPER NOVA

Thanks to Sophia Martelli in yesterday's Observer for a lovely review of Incandescence, which appeared in the paper's splendid Classics Corner spot.

Sophia says :

"Long out of print, Incandescence fits perfectly into Capuchin Classics' mission to "revive great works of fiction that have been unjustly forgotten or neglected". Championed by William Boyd, writer of the book's foreword, it is a gritty, glittering star in the publisher's line-up."

Sophie goes on to praise the novel's "hard-boiled urban poetry" and compares Nova's prose style to DeLilo, Kerouac, Chandler and Amis.

This is very welcome praise for a grossly undersung literary figure.

David