I should have said last time that Pick of Punch (which I’m still reading) is from the Folio Society, a high-falutin’ book-club. They produce very nice hardback editions of books, complete with illustrations that are usually very good. I’m very keen on their series of Joseph Conrad's works (novels and collections of shorter pieces). They’ve published two a year for the last few years, and I now have seven, of which I’ve read Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness (which came with another couple of stories as well) and Nostromo. I thought the latter was particularly good.
However, I also have to admit that charges of pretentiousness might come a bit close to the mark with this outfit. They’ve been going for a while now, and some times I think that I’m shelling out more money than is warranted (four books a year at about £20 each).
Here’s a very amusing piece on Salon about the corporate cartoon characters of America, such as Ronald McDonald, and their over-anxious minders.
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