My 1984 stocktake

I'm slightly envious of the guy who collected 1,984 copies of Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and turned them into an art exhibit. It just feels like a really cool idea. As someone prone to collecting, and who had a meaningful number as a collecting target in the past, it's one of those ideas I wish I'd had.

But perhaps it's a good thing I didn't have the idea! I don't have space for 1,984 copies of the same book. But I do have a few different copies. 

This is my favourite cover. I didn't need to buy this when Penguin released it a few years ago, but come on... it's perfect.

You can see how the 'censorship' black-out strip is over an embossed title, so it can be read more clearly if the book is tilted slightly.

The write-up on the back is quite minimalist. Penguin were packaging George Orwell's work as "Great Orwell" at the time. 

Keeping to the minimalist theme, there is no introduction. There is a page of quotes by authors and reviewers though.

Here's an older copy that I acquired from my Grandma's house. I kept a few of her books. This cover feels very cluttered and chaotic, in keeping with the way the Party both demands order but pursues disruption.

The writing on the left continues round onto the spine and then the back of the book.

The back cover features a quote from Andrew Motion, who might have been poet laureate when this copy was published. (It doesn't give an issue date but the existence of an advert for Penguin Books's website implies it was published after 1999 when Motion took up the role.) There is a brief author bio in the front but no intro.

My other Penguin edition is my 'reading copy' and has an issue date of 2008. It also has a 4-page introduction by Peter Davison (the literary professor, not the actor who played Dr Who!)

The cover design by Shepard Fairey is quite striking and they designed covers for Animal Farm as well (as seen on the back).

The two endorsements on the back are from comic Jo Brand and author Margaret Atwood. They feel like an unlikely pairing.

I blogged two years ago that several companies have started printing Nineteen Eighty-Four because the copyright on the book has expired (as has the copyright on all of Orwell's writings) so it's been a bit of a publishing free for all. 

But, despite seeing lots of attractive copies I have resisted the temptation to fill out a shelf with them. However, I did buy this version in TK Maxx recently. It is published by Wordsworth Classics and I bought it because it had an interesting-looking long introduction and several other essays by Orwell included. 

Plus the cover designed by Becky Surridge was very cool. It has real Fritz Lang 'Metropolis' vibes. Given the opening line of the book, the man in the clock in the 8 is striking. It could be Winston. It could be whoever is spying on Winston.

The introduction by Sally Minogue, author and academic, is 30 pages long. And adding even more value to this edition is a selection of essays and other bits, like book reviews.

There are no endorsements on the back. The write-up lists all the words and terms coined by Orwell in this book - something I blogged about way back when in the early years of this blog.

The list of additional content looks intriguing. I'm interested in what he thought of Wells and Huxley, both of whom were authors of speculative fiction too. (I've categorised 'speculative fiction' previously.)

So, those are my copies of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I have two books about the book as well. I reviewed DJ Taylor's book On 1984 back in 2023. I also have a copy of The Ministry of Truth by Dorian Lynskey, which will hopefully make it off the reading pile and onto the blog at some point!

For now, it's sitting in my 1984 collection.

Book of the Month: The Girl Who Speaks Bear

This book by Sophie Anderson was in a stack we were sorting through in our front room. Cathy isn't sure where she picked it up originally. The illustrations (by Kathrin Honesta) caught my eye and when I opened it, I saw it was a book with a map in the front. I'm a sucker for books with maps in the front. So I thought I would give it a go and added it to my 'to read' pile. 

Cathy has told me she wants to read the book too, so I am going to try and keep this as spoiler-free as possible. It's set in a Russian-esque setting -  snow and woods and various anglicised Russian words dropped into the text. There is a glossary of those words in the back, presumably to help younger readers as this is a 'young adult' book.

The story itself is interspersed with short fairy tales, but overall is a fairly standard quest in search of answers and gathering friends to help you along the way. The central character is a girl called Yanka, who is tall and strong and feels like she doesn't really belong in the village where she is growing up. And that's mainly because she doesn't really belong. She's a foundling and, as she becomes aware of that and starts to wonder about where she really comes from, she finds out that a lot of folk tales she has been told have personal significance for her. 

Other books on the back cover

Sophie Anderson has written some other books drawing on a similar Russian folk tale backdrop, and it felt like some of the other characters, like the yaga witches in their living house, appeared without much of an introduction because they have featured in other books. That was a bit odd.

I thought there was a lot to like about this book. Some of the descriptions and metaphors are beautifully done. The setting tends to work. However, overall I struggled to get into the book. Yanka's internal monologue gets a bit tiring at times as she picks over the different stories she hears and tries to fathom the truth in them. I'm glad I persevered as the pace picked up towards the end and I ended up wanting to know how the story ended. 

Book of the Month: The List of Suspicious Things

An early 'book of the month' this month because I had already finished reading this by the end of last month for one very simple reason: it was that good I tore through it on one of my return train trips to London, starting it somewhere just outside Cardiff on the way there and finishing it somewhere between Newport and Cardiff on the way back!

And also a shout out to whoever designed this book cover because this delightful scruffy crow on the cover, pilfering milk from a doorstep delivery caught my eye while on a wander in Griffin Books in Penarth. So I picked it up, read the back cover summary and thought 'hmmm'. Although - spoiler alert - crows don't feature much in the book. 

This is a fictionalised semi-memoir that carries a ring of authenticity heavily swirled in nostalgia. It is loosely based on Jennie Godfrey's own experience of growing up in Yorkshire during the early 1980s when Peter Sutcliffe, who was branded the Yorkshire Ripper by the press, murdered multiple young women. 

The two best friends in the story - Miv (Mavis) and Sharon - are drawn to the horror that starts overshadowing everyday life and follow the police's advice to look out for suspicious things. They start to create a list of things - and men - they think are suspicious. And along the way their investigations uncover a whole heap of other secrets in the lives of the adults around them.

It's a very engaging story and remains believable right up to the very end. I was worried that the story might turn silly with Miv and Sharon catching, or just encountering, the Ripper. But that doesn't happen. There is enough drama going on without fabricating that. Although it turns out there is a connection between Miv and the Ripper, based on the author's own childhood connection which meant she was just one step removed from the Ripper in real life. 

I have one very minor criticism: there are some slightly heavy-handed nostalgia drops into the text. As someone roughly the same age as the author I recognised the descriptions of certain fads and fashions and how particular brands were the must have thing among teenagers but the name checks amused me. I also recognised the freedom I had as a child, as Miv and Sharon head out after school on adventures with no phones, just an understanding they would be back for tea. 

Many of the secrets that Miv and Sharon uncover have very deep themes - loss, betrayal, unhappy marriages, child abuse, mental illness and racism. The girls grow up as they learn more about the people living around them, and while most of the characters have a happyish ending, several do not. There's a real emotional punch to the conclusion to the story, which shows how much it drew me in.

It's to the author's credit that there are no absolute villains, just hurt and broken people hurting and breaking other people. There's a deep underlying sadness for communities that are shifting sideways as the manufacturing industries abruptly shut down and despair kicks in, with some people kicking out in response and wounding others in the process. It's as much a nostalgic tribute to those disappearing mill towns as to the author's own family and childhood. 

This is the first book I've read this year that I would whole-heartedly recommend. I'm very glad the eye-catching rascal of a crow on the cover made me pick it up!

Book cover comedy - dinosaur edition

Here are a couple of book covers I spotted in a charity shop today that are crying out for humorous captions. 

This demure dinosaur is clearly saying "Who, me? Be the cover star?"

Meanwhile, this suggestive guy is saying "Hey, baby, do you like therapods? Yeah, you do!"

Neither book came home with me despite making me chuckle.

Add your own caption by leaving a comment!