{"id":2,"date":"2014-08-31T17:13:40","date_gmt":"2014-08-31T17:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the-perfect-library.zonkdev.uk\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2022-01-20T15:37:39","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T15:37:39","slug":"sample-page","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/","title":{"rendered":"Postcards from Penguin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three years ago someone \u00a0gave me a box of postcards. Each card features a different Penguin book cover, but I\u2019ve never taken all of the cards out of the box at the same time. Every\u00a0morning\u00a0<\/span>I cut them like a deck of playing cards and the winning card sits at the top of the deck for the rest of the day.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_0543\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some\u00a0\u00a0of the cover designs are little masterpieces; triumphs of the illustrator’s or graphic designer’s art. \u00a0But most\u00a0of them are based simply on three bold, horizontal \u00a0stripes; predominantly orange and white.\u00a0The collection\u00a0doesn\u2019t limit itself to fiction so there are also green, blue and\u00a0pink\u00a0stripes; crime, biography and travel books. And there are other birds: Pelicans, Puffins, and King Penguins.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0site isn’t about the design of Penguin book covers. If you want a detailed\u00a0 history of the little dancing penguin logo, or the way the covers have evolved over the years, \u00a0Phil Baines’s excellent book,\u00a0Penguin by Design<\/em>, says it all. <\/span><\/p>\n

Looking at the cards that found their way to the top of the box led me to think that whoever selected these 100 books was interested in more than just the design of the covers. \u00a0I think t<\/span>here\u2019s something for every reader in this box;\u00a0classic and not-so-classic novels, philosophy, anthologies of poetry, plays, social commentaries and self-help books. There’s even a practical guide to raising poultry.<\/p>\n

I began to think of my box of postcards\u00a0as The Perfect Library.\u00a0<\/em> There’s something intriguing about every book it contains. Sometimes it’s the cover but – more often – it’s the subject, or the author, or the year it was published.<\/p>\n

I’m going to try to say something interesting about each postcard in less then 500 words but my posts are not book reviews. I think I’ve read about a fifth of the \u00a0titles at some point in my life, and I’ve managed to track down just four in their original Postcards from Penguin<\/em>\u00a0 editions. Those soft, brown-edged paperbacks<\/span>\u00a0have pride of place on\u00a0my shelves.<\/p>\n

The Perfect Library<\/em> is located – in my mind, of course – in the sitting room of a small hotel in the Welsh mountains. Or maybe it’s one of those civilized Youth Hostels where they have a well stocked bar. \u00a0I’ve been walking in the hills with friends. It’s\u00a0\u00a0been a glorious day but now it\u2019s raining. Midnight has passed and everyone else has gone to bed. I’m still too exhilarated by the walk and the conversation to be sleepy.\u00a0The Perfect Library<\/em> is\u00a0beside the fire,\u00a0<\/span>nestling\u00a0on rickety wooden shelves<\/span>\u00a0behind an old \u00a0stuffed armchair; a little dusty and – like me – \u00a0slightly foxed.<\/p>\n

There’s enough light to read, a glass of wine left in the bottle and a few more logs for the fire. I pick a title at random, and settle down to read…<\/p>\n

You can read the posts by category at the top of this page. Individual titles are listed on the right hand side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three years ago someone \u00a0gave me a box of postcards. Each card features a different Penguin book cover, but I\u2019ve never taken all of the cards out of the box at the same time. Every\u00a0morning\u00a0I cut them like a deck of playing cards and the winning card sits at the top of the deck for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":349,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}