A Different Stripe

NYRB Classics Ebooks: Who Knows Seven?*

It's been a while since we offered a run-down of our ebook offerings (which can be bought from most major ebook retailers). We've published many more in the last six months. Here are seven of them, each with a representative passage:

(See part one of the series: the first 13 ebooks)

 

The Long Ships
Frans G. Bengtsson, introduction by Michael Chabon

"In his old age Orm used to say that this period in his life was lengthy to endure, but brief to tell of, for one day resembled another so that, in a sense, it was as though time was standing still for them. But there were signs to remind him that time was, in fact, passing; and one of these was his beard. When he first became a slave, he was the only one among them so young as to be beardless; but before long his beard began to grow, becoming redder even than his hair, and in time it grew so long that it swept the handle of his oar as he bowed himself over his stroke. Longer than that it could not grow, for the sweep of his oar curtailed its length; and of all the methods of trimming one’s beard, he would say, that was the last that he would choose."

 

The Outward Room
Millen Brand, afterword by Peter Cameron

"She put her suitcase on a chair and went to the window. The sun. It came steadily through the window, making no shadows of bars. The key. It was to keep others out, not to keep her in. Whenever she wanted to, she could leave. She looked at the room, the green walls, the floor; she touched the white rough covers of her bed. Here, in this room, to stand, to move, to sleep. Here, perhaps, to live?"

 

The Dud Avocado
Elaine Dundy, introduction by Terry Teachout

"One of the things—one of the many, many, many things that fascinate me about myself—is how it is possible for me to know something without really knowing it at all. I mean I seemed to have known about queers all my life, I can’t remember when I didn’t, and I generally can guess who is. I mean, it’s no traumatic shock for me or anything like that to discover that so-and-so actually is one—and yet, I swear, I was flabbergasted when I saw that club. There was a style of flirting along the bar where some sailors stood waiting to be picked up, that no starlet could hope to emulate. And the droves and droves. I had no idea there were so many. I just had no idea."

 

The Old Man and Me
Elaine Dundy

"Anyway here I was back again in Soho in this terrible dive the Crypt because what had happened was that the night before one of the Americans, down from Oxford, had said, 'Hey, someone gave me a list of literary pubs, did you ever? Isn’t it straight out of Shakespearian times? They’re in Soho, see, that’s where all the you know, sort of odd-ball Greenwich Villagey Left Banky off-beat In-group types'—(that was the way he talked)—'oh, artists and painters and all that jazz are supposed to hang out. So why don’t we give it a whirl, hey? Might be a fun thing.'
    "So I went. I had nothing better to do, had I, except recount my money and repaint my finger-nails and die of frustration?"

 

The Singapore Grip
by J.G. Farrell, introduction by Derek Mahon

"The city of Singapore was not built up gradually, the way most cities are, by a natural deposit of commerce on the banks of some river or at a traditional confluence of trade routes. It was simply invented one morning early in the nineteenth century by a man looking at a map. ‘Here,’ he said to himself, ‘is where we must have a city, half-way between India and China. This will be the great halting-place on the trade route to the Far East. Mind you, the Dutch will dislike it and Penang won’t be pleased, not to mention Malacca.’ This man’s name was Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles: before the war his bronze statue used to stand in Empress Place in a stone alcove like a scallop shell (he has been moved along now and, turned to stone, occupies a shady spot by the river). He was by no means the lantern-jawed individual you might have expected: indeed, a rather vague-looking man in a frock coat."

 

After Claude
Iris Owens, introduction by Emily Prager

"Only a pathological martyr would cook in such weather. The heat sizzled over the filthy streets like an invisible mustard plaster. If you fancy cooked banana peel with pizza and eggshells, there was a feast in the gutter. There were a lot of drunken bums hanging around, competing for nickels with hippies in hair-shirts, rehearsing the plague. I dragged myself to Bleecker Street, holding my unmasked breath until I was in the sheltering arms of the A&P. It was freezing in there. I asked a mustachioed clerk where the cold cuts were hidden, but naturally he didn’t speak a word of English. 'Cold cuts,' I shouted into his insane face. He laughed gleefully, as if I had proposed that we both crawl under the check-out counter and knock off a quickie."

 

Rogue Male
Geoffrey Household, introduction by Victoria Nelson

"This shooting trip of mine started, I believe, innocently enough. Like most Englishmen, I am not accustomed to enquire very deeply into motives. I dislike and disbelieve in cold-blooded planning, whether it be suggested of me or of anyone else. I remember asking myself when I packed the telescopic sight what the devil I wanted it for; but I just felt that it might come in handy."

 

*"Seven are the days of the week." From a song traditionally sung on Passover (which begins next Monday).

NYRB Classic Ebooks: A Baker's Dozen

We now have thirteen books from the NYRB Classics available as electronic books. Where can you buy them? Among other places, Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Borders, Books on Board, and the Sony Reader store. As independent booksellers begin selling and supporting ebooks in their own stores, you should see our books there as well.

The same territorial restrictions that apply to our print books apply to ebooks, so if you can't buy a given print book where you live, then you won't be able to purchase that book in an electronic edition either. When possible, we'll be releasing ebooks on the same day as the print edition goes on sale. Meanwhile we're working our way through digitizing our backlist titles for which we have electronic rights.

 

Wish Her Safe at Home
Stephen Benatar
introduction by John Carey

"Perhaps all this was slightly fanciful but is there anything much wrong with that?"

 

A Meaningful Life
L. J. Davis
introduction by Jonathan Lethem

"'You're out of your mind,' said his wife. 'I can't imagine what's gotten into you. I categorically will not move to Brooklyn, and that's final. What part of Brooklyn?'"

 

Hard Rain Falling
Don Carpenter
introduction by George Pelecanos

"Billy stood, trembling with rage and relief, and watched the cop amble back to the bar, where he picked up a half-empty glass of beer and drank from it. God damn you, Billy thought, you rotten cop motherfucking bastard!"

 

The Jokers
Albert Cossery
introduction by James Buchan

 "'Violence will never get to the bottom of this absurd world.... That’s just what these tyrants want: for you to take them seriously. To answer violence with violence shows that you take them seriously, that you believe in their justice and their authority, and it only builds them up. But I’m cutting them down.'”

 

The One-Straw Revolution
Masanobu Fukuoka
preface by Wendell Berry
introduction by Frances Moore Lappé

 "'How about not doing this? How about not doing that?'—that was my way of thinking. I ultimately reached the conclusion that there was no need to plow, no need to apply fertilizer, no need to make compost, no need to use insecticide."

 

The Siege of Krishnapur
J.G. Farrell
introduction by Pankaj Mishra

"'I should go so far as to say that in the long run a superior civilization such as ours is irresistible. By combining our advances in science and in morality we have so obviously found the best way of doing things. Truth cannot be resisted! Er, that’s to say, not successfully.'”

 

Troubles
J.G. Farrell
introduction by John Banville

"The Major only glanced at the newspaper these days, tired of trying to comprehend a situation which defied comprehension, a war without battles or trenches. Why should one bother with the details: the raids for arms, the shootings of policemen, the intimidations? What could one learn from the details of chaos?"

 

Everything Flows
Vasily Grossman
translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler, and Anna Aslanyan

"Time worked unhurriedly, conscientiously. First the man was expelled from life, to reside instead in people’s memories. Then he lost his right to residence in people’s memories, sinking down into their subconscious minds and jumping out at someone only occasionally, like a jack-in-the-box, frightening them with the unexpectedness of his sudden, momentary appearances."

 

The Road
Vasily Grossman
translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler, and Olga Mukovnikova

"How is one to convey the grace of a slender apple tree bearing its first pale heavy apple, the grace of a young bird raising its first fledglings, the grace of a young roe deer that has just borne a fawn? The helplessness—the new motherhood—of a girl, of a little girl, still almost a child.
    "After The Sistine Madonna one can no longer refer to this special grace as ineffable or mysterious."

 

A High Wind in Jamaica
Richard Hughes
introduction by Francine Prose

"In short, babies have minds which work in terms and categories of their own which cannot be translated into the terms and categories of the human mind.
    "It is true they look human—but not so human, to be quite fair, as many monkeys."

 

Skylark
Dezso Kosztolányi
introduction by Péter Esterházy

"Sitting on the terrace sipping beer, the afternoon clientele of the Széchenyi Café looked up from their newspapers and stared at Skylark. Not disrespectfully, just the way they always did: with a look of grey, benevolent sympathy, lined in red with a certain malevolent pleasure."

 

Sunflower
Gyula Krúdy
introduction by John Lukacs

"Far away in a Hungarian village Eveline’s nanny, as usual, laid out the Tarot first thing in the morning.
  "The ancient crone squatting on the floor suddenly pointed at a figure that had long been absent from the lay of the cards.
  “'A traveler’s approaching,' she said, and Eveline trembled like a windblown leaf."

 

Stoner
John Williams
introduction by John McGahern

"He had come to that moment in his age when there occurred to him, with increasing intensity, a question of such overwhelming simplicity that he had no means to face it. He found himself wondering if his life were worth the living; if it had ever been."