Dear classics reader,
On this week’s store porch you will find:
A report from our conversation about Bonjour Tristesse – at the Hatchards Classics Book Club last night;
Birthday wishes to Vladimir Sorokin;
A preview of coming attractions and other notices;
And for paid subscribers:
The week’s new classics – including Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood;
And our first discussion of Their Eyes Were Watching God – with a note on Joseph E. Clark.
This newsletter may be too long for your email inbox. If so, please click ‘View entire message’ at the bottom – or visit Substack.
Bonjour Tristesse Book Club
Last month we read Bonjour Tristesse – and last night we had an excellent discussion about it at the Hatchards Classics Book Club. Here is my report:
And here are links to all of our Bonjour Tristesse posts:
The Schedule (12 June)
Françoise Sagan (26 June)
0. Paul Éluard (3 July)
1. Part One – and Henri Bergson (10 July)
2. Part Two – and car accidents (17 July)
If you would like to come to our next Hatchards Classics Book Club discussion, you’d be very welcome! We will be discussing Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God on Thursday 3rd September.
Happy Birthday Vladimir Sorokin
In other news, today is Vladimir Sorokin’s 71st birthday. He was born on this day in 1955.
Vladimir Georgievich Sorokin was born in Moscow, where he still lives. After studying engineering at the Gubkin Institute of Oil and Gas, he became a samizdat illustrator and author.
Today his novels have been translated into thirty languages; he has won the Andrei Bely Prize, the Maxim Gorky Prize and the Gregor von Rezzori Prize and the New York Times has described him as ‘Russia’s most inventive contemporary author’.
Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin (2006)
Moscow 2028: Andrei Danilovich Komiaga, oprichnik, member of the czar’s inner circle of trusted courtiers, rouses himself from a drunken stupor and prepares for another day of debauchery, violence, terror and beauty. In this New Russia, futuristic technology combine with the draconian world of Ivan the Terrible to create a dystopia chillingly akin to reality. Over the twenty-four-hour span of the novel, Komiaga will rape, pillage and torture, in the name of the czar he fears and adores. Shimmering with invention, fierce social commentary and razor-sharp wit, Day of the Oprichnik imagines a near future too disturbing to contemplate and too close to reality to ignore.
[UK] Penguin Modern Classics | 208 pages | translated by Jamey Gambrell
[US] FSG | 208 pages | translated by Jamey Gambrell
Coming Attractions and Other Notices
New schedule and archive page
I am delighted to share the link to a new Read the Classics page:
I’ll be keeping this schedule updated with all of our current, past and future read-alongs – and for easy reference I’ve also included links to all our previous read-along posts.
Big Think – Summer 2026
I’m very glad to have a piece in Big Think’s quarterly print magazine. The theme of their summer issue is ‘The Opt-Out Nation’. I’ve written about Bartleby the Scrivener and other forms of opting out in literature. You can read my piece here.
Here is some more information about the issue. Big Think is here on Substack. Become a member to get your copy of the print edition.
Annual book subscription
If you’re enjoying our read-alongs, why not treat yourself to the Hatchards Classic Book Club annual book subscription?
You (or a friend) can receive all the books we read each month here on Read the Classics, beautifully gift-wrapped and delivered to your door, anywhere in the world, as well as a year’s complimentary subscription to Read the Classics, so you can choose to read along with us, if you wish.
To find out more, follow this link or email Hatchards directly: subscriptions@hatchards.co.uk
