Love For Books

Look for books in the January sales

January is often the time when you can pick up lots of bargains on clothing, furniture and electronics, but you can also pick up some bargains on books. Books are pretty expensive to get hold of even if you do find them incredibly rewarding.

All the big book shops and online retailers have large scale sales in early January to boost their own sales figures. You can take advantage of this by making a list of the books you’ve wanted for a while and then checking out their prices in the sales. You might even be able to pick up a load of them half price, keeping you in great literature for the next few months.

Get to know your favourite authors with The Paris Review Interviews

It is interesting to find out more about your favourite writers, but many biographies are difficult to get into because they seem a little speculative. Many writers are very secretive and it is hard to imagine how their biographers could penetrate their private and working lives to any great degree.

However, I would certainly recommend getting your hands on a copy of The Paris Review Interviews. There are four volumes in total and they feature interviews from throughout the 20th century, taking in some of the most influential writers of all time. The interviews promise a much greater insight into the way great writers approach writing and they make wonderful reading for literature lovers.

Delve a little deeper into the lesser known works of Steinbeck

John Steinbeck is one of America’s best-loved writers and books like The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden and Of Mice and Men have cemented his place in the history books. However, some little-known works are also incredibly rewarding.

Among those works is a short novel called Tortilla Flat. This wonderful story takes place in the familiar Steinbeck setting of California. The ups and downs and moral twists and turns of a group of friends in a downtrodden part of Monterey provides the plot, which comes in the form of a number of short vignettes that are incredibly easy to digest and yet which feel full of meaning.

If your relationship with Steinbeck only stretches as far as the major works, it is definitely worth delving a little deeper.

Mini Modern Classics range is great news for the short story

The short story is a format that was embraced by American audiences a long time ago and writers from all over the world have produced some of their best work in this form. However, British readers have taken a long time to warm to the format which means they are missing out on some fantastic literature.

However, Penguin produces a number of ‘Mini Modern Classics’ which give readers the chance to discover works in short story format by a selection of truly remarkable authors. This gives people ready access to some great short pieces of fiction and allows them to sample a way of reading that is completely different to the novel.