u/Ok-Estimate2856

since nyrb and penguin classics both have such distinctive branding, i wanted to play around with cover design and see what would happen if nyrbs were packaged as penguin classics, using some of my favourite titles. NO AI WAS USED!! i used this template

1. cassandra at the wedding: wild blue yonder by carol bennett (21st c)
   • i knew i wanted to have some pool imagery while also paying homage to the brilliant orange nyrb cover. carol bennett does a lot of paintings of women swimming, and this one was just perfect. i like that you can't see the subject's face and how she's blending into her own reflection, similar to how cassandra's sense of identity is so wrapped up in being judith's twin
2. alice james: the convalescent by gustave-leonhard de jonghe (c. 1850-1869)
   • i had a bunch of options for this one but i really loved the curtains and framing of this painting. the textures are lush and comfortable, appropriate for alice's wealthy upbringing, but the shadows make it seem more private, alluding to both the "dark waters" of alice's illness and the secrecy inherent in keeping a diary. the pose also reminds me somewhat of one of the few photos we have of alice, pictured here with katharine loring in 1890
3. abigail: fall, school by marianne von werefkin
   • there are surprisingly few images on wikimedia commons of teenagers at boarding school, at least not ones for the era i was looking for! i don't think this cover is quite right, but the stern black and white uniforms emphasize the strict calvinism of matula's doctrine and also gina hiding in plain sight. the way the girls are positioned reminds me of madeline which is a fun little twist. both very different boarding school stories!
4. the thirty years' war: death on a pale horse by william blake (c. 1800)
   • yes, there are more period-accurate and specific representations of the thirty years war, but i chose this image because it is, frankly, sick as hell. blake's style is so iconic and alive, it felt appropriate, especially for an audience who may not otherwise be interested in picking up a book on the thirty years war. the imagery is pretty basic, death riding his pale horse from the book of revelations, showing the horror and destruction wedgwood relates without the cover being too gory and/or muddy
5. an african in greenland: photo from the book itself!
   • maybe this is cheating, but using one of kpomassie's own photos felt most appropriate for a first-person account. this is one of the iconic images of him in greenland and i think the composition lends itself nicely to the cover!

i've been on the hunt for this specific edition of mandelstam's poems for years now (i'm a huge fan of carel fabritius, so i was buying for the cover) but apparently the book gods didn't want me to buy it. it isn't listed on indigo (canada's equivalent to b&n), getting it directly from the nyrb site costs an arm and a leg with shipping, getting it from my local indie was more trouble than i wanted to create, and used copies are next to nonexistent. however i finally stumbled upon a used copy on thriftbooks the other week and it arrived a full day early!! so excited to finally dive into this, has anyone read it?

this is lizzie love leopard 💗 she's turning 19 this year (old enough to drink in canada!) and is one of my all-time fave babs. recently i've enlisted her to be my migraine nurse since her kind face can absorb all the demons in my brain. humidity and weather changes are a major trigger for me, and it's been brutal recently so she's been getting extra snuggles. hope all you guys in the northern hemisphere are staying cool with your fave friend!

saw this beauty mentioned on a thread of nyrbs with queer characters/themes and decided to pick it up today! haven't read any barbara pym, but if i like this one, i'll pick up a glass a blessings. a beautiful companion on a scorching hot day

long-time collector/lurker, first-time poster AND first-time frog owner. found this handsome fellow at the thrift store, said i didn't need him, then immediately started crying when i walked away. needless to say he came home with me. babs are so expensive in canada (frog currently retails for $46!!!) and i got this lad in perfect condition for $6!! he is so soft and polite 😭💚 idk what his name will be but my first thought was herman for some inexplicable reason

things got a little out of hand. i've read gilgamesh and the gambler in different translations, as well as lady audley's secret. think i will prioritize the snow leopard and ethan frome. have you read any from this pile?

hi everyone, i finished effingers not too long ago and have been mulling it over for the past few weeks. since i haven't seen much discussion about it on this subreddit, i thought i would share my thoughts with the group.

i don't normally gravitate towards multi-generational family stories, but something about effingers' cover really roped me in. last year i read and adored life and fate and stalingrad both by vasily grossman which, although multi-generational, focused on all the characters within the same span of time so the generations didn't get mixed up. so, i figured i would have a similar experience.

one thing about life & fate/stalingrad that i think effingers would have benefited from is a family tree. effingers is somewhat smaller in scope, not including historical figures or any real one-off characters who only exist in a certain part of the story. in theory, you have fewer characters to keep track of. unfortunately, the three main families the narrative focuses on are so closely intertwined that i found it difficult to remember how everyone was related >!especially when two (first? second?) cousins get together!<. this could be a me problem, and is part of the reason why i don't gravitate towards this type of story, so i'd be interested to know if anyone else had similar difficulties keeping track of characters.

the other thing i wanted to comment on is the way tergit handles the passage of time. effingers covers 70 years, and the span is not evenly weighted. i'd reckon that about half the narrative is just the first 22 years bringing us into the 20th century. from there, things begin to slowly speed up, introducing and killing off characters who we've really gotten to know. by the time the nazis show up in in the last ~200 pages (these are all estimates, i don't have the book on me and it's towards the bottom of a heavy stack), time starts flying by with every page. just knowing the subject matter and the timeframe, you start the novel with a sense of unease at the back of your mind, knowing that the world these characters occupy will be almost entirely destroyed by the end of the story, that the destruction is not only inevitable but deeply human both in cause and cost. when i was almost done reading i was stressed about how tergit could possibly wrap everything up in the last 50ish pages.

and then she doesn't.

i don't begrudge tergit for not wanting to write Another holocaust novel, and i understand why the story essentially cuts out right where another one could easily start. there's an epilogue, but with very few answers. at first this really frustrated, the way the narrative simply stalls out right before it ends, like a cartoon plane dropping out of the sky. but the more i thought about it, the more it began to make sense. time goes slowly when you don't notice it. it's only when you get closer to unfathomable horror (especially horror that you the reader are on the other side of) that it speeds up, going faster and faster until you're hurtling towards catastrophe you're unable to prevent and unable to look away from.

i don't think this is a perfect novel, and it definitely isn't my fave of the nyrbs i've read, but i deeply appreciate how much effingers challenged me and encouraged me to think. i've been going through a rough personal patch and doing even the most rudimentary of literary analysis was a brief blip of joy.

also, for an 800+ page book, it truly flies by. the chapters are relatively short with lots of dialogue which make it less daunting than similar books of its length. the afterword is also wonderful! sometimes i find nyrb paratext a bit lacking, but sophie duvernoy did a wonderful job of providing context on tergit's life. i found the struggle she faced in finding an audience for her novel especially moving. jewish audiences thought it was too assimilated and irreverent, while christian audiences found it too jewish. the main audience for whom her book was written about and for was killed by the millions.

anyway, those are just some of my thoughts and i'm sorry for rambling! i don't have tergit's other nyrb novel on hand, but i do have berlin alexanderplatz on deck for more inter-war berlin!