Book Marks: Put a Penguin in your pocket

31 May 2016 - 10:14 By Andrew Donaldson

Kutscher's Detective Inspector Gereon Rath procedurals are bestsellers in Germany, where they've been praised for their accurate portrayal of the Weimar Republic's last days. NEW IN TRANSLATIONBabylon Berlin by Volker Kutscher (Sandstone Press)Kutscher's Detective Inspector Gereon Rath procedurals are bestsellers in Germany, where they've been praised for their accurate portrayal of the Weimar Republic's last days. This is the first in the series and has just been translated into English. Welcome then to Berlin's "Roaring Twenties" and a world of toxic politics, prostitution, drugs and murder.THE ISSUEWelcome, also, to Penguin Random House's "Pocket Penguins" - the new compact format which replaces the old "oil painting" cover Penguin Classics with a simple colour design that harks back to the imprint's 1930s heyday.The first 20 titles in the series are: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov; Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf; The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad, The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek; The Lost Estate by Alain-Fournier; The Call of Cthulhu by HP Lovecraft; The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni; Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka; The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke; The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan; Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev; Out of Africa by Karen Blixen; Walden by Henry David Thoreau; A Parisian Affair by Guy de Maupassant; The Beast Within by Emile Zola; The Cossacks and Hadji Murat by Leo Tolstoy; The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace; The Rainbow by DH Lawrence; My Childhood by Maxim Gorky; and O Pioneers! by Willa Cather.CRASH COURSEJuly 17 marks the 80th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War, and prominent writers and academics have appealed to Barcelona's left-wing mayor, Ada Colau, to set aside a building in the city, which was one of the key centres of resistance to General Franco's Nationalist forces, to house a museum and research centre dedicated to the conflict.Richard Blair, whose father, George Orwell, was one of several writers who travelled to Spain to take up the Republicans' cause and who later detailed his experiences in the classic memoir Homage to Catalonia, has pointed out that many young people in Spain have not been taught in depth about the civil war, or of the lengthy dictatorship that followed. "You can't have a black hole," he told the Observer. "The time has come for history to be looked at again."In this regard we have, in addition to Orwell's book, Anthony Beevor's The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939, Richard Rhodes'Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and the World it Made and Laurie Lee's A Moment of War. Ernest Hemingway's novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, is also recommended. Two books of Spanish reportage from the 1930s, Constancia de la Mora's In Place of Splendour and Ramón J Sender's The War in Spain are worth seeking out, too.THE BOTTOM LINE"Enlightenment fundamentalism." - Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World by Timothy Garton Ash (Atlantic Books)..

There’s never been a more important time to support independent media.

From World War 1 to present-day cosmopolitan South Africa and beyond, the Sunday Times has been a pillar in covering the stories that matter to you.

For just R80 you can become a premium member (digital access) and support a publication that has played an important political and social role in South Africa for over a century of Sundays. You can cancel anytime.

Already subscribed? Sign in below.



Questions or problems? Email helpdesk@timeslive.co.za or call 0860 52 52 00.