A little bit of reading before bedtime

Often the only reading time I can squeeze in is at night or late in the day, when chores and homework are done...
And apart from my passion for great stories comes a desire for lovely editions.
One I have just discovered is a rather new line of books by the Boston/New York publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
What a great name for a publishing house. It promises so much...My romantic ideas of an old place filled with manuscripts and books...
Well, at my bookstore I saw some wonderful bound books by them and my hunting instincts awakened...
Authors I have come to admire are now published in wonderfully designed book covers. These are all doubles, two stories by the same author. I always quote the publisher.
Jhumpa Lahiri's 'Interpreter of Maladies' and 'The Namesake'
Jhumpa Lahiri took the literary world by storm when her debut collection, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. The collection was followed by her best-selling and critically acclaimed novel The Namesake--a finely wrought, deeply moving family drama. Presenting these works together here, this edition displays Lahiri's enormous talent as a storyteller.


Jonathan Safran Foer's 'Everything Is Illuminated' and 'Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close':
Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer's stunning debut, tells the story of a young Jewish American's quixotic journey into an unexpected past. Foer then turned his talent to the traumas of our recent history in his exhilarating second novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. This beautiful edition brings together, for the first time, two works from one of this generation's most original writers.


The following three will be out within the next half year.
This one by Eudora Welty is new to me. 'Delta Wedding' and 'The Ponder Heart'. Publication Date: May 18, 2011.
Set in 1923, Delta Wedding is an exquisitely woven story of southern family life, centered around the Fairchild family’s preparations for a wedding at their Mississippi plantation. In The Ponder Heart, a comic masterpiece, Miss Edna Earle Ponder, one of the few living members of a once prominent family, tells a traveling salesman the history of her family and fellow townsfolk. This edition brings together two fine works from one of the most beloved writers of the American south.


Next in this series will be Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs. Dalloway' and 'A Room of One's Own'. Publication Date: Nov 15, 2010.
In Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf details Clarissa Dalloway's preparations for a party of which she is to be hostess, exploring the hidden springs of thought and action in one day of a woman's life. Paired here with A Room of One's Own, a masterful and provocative essay on women's role in society, this beautiful hardcover edition will be a welcome addition to the library of any Woolf scholar or fan.



And then I found Alice Walker's 'The Color Purple' and 'The Temple of My Familiar'. Publication Date: May 18, 2011.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, The Color Purple is the moving story of a young woman’s endurance of shame and suffering to become whole and to know God. The novel became an instant classic and has been adapted into a film and musical. Paired here with The Temple of My Familiar, which the author describes as “a romance of the last 500,000 years,” this edition brings together two works that established Walker as a major voice in modern fiction.



These are going to make a fine collection or a wonderful gift for the holidays!

xx
Victoria



Top two pictures my own, all others via Houghton Mifflin Harcourt website.