A Basket of Literary Truffles

Besides The Monarchist and a judiciously filled (very, very filled) hipflask, the next thing the troubled man of today needs is a good read. Put aside the swelling packages from the pharmacy; avoid the other more casual pharmacy in his hooded top and jeans on the corner of your road; not for us the druggism of the 21st century. Books can do the job perfectly well. Is it any mere coincidence that the decline of literacy is exactly inverse to the rise of junkiedom?

There are, of course, numerous kinds for numerous purposes. If one aims for some sort of paper-based sleeping pill, pretty much anything from the shelves of modern fiction will do it.

As for a little appetite suppressant, may we heartily endorse anything from the Current Affairs section?

But to be electrified? To have the hairs quivering on end, the mind breezy and elevated, the eyes well popped? Let us turn a page back to that happy historical summertime of Edwardian Britain.

Which is precisely what Penguin have done. In charming two-tone covers with excellent retro design and cover illustrations, they have relaunched into the world everything from Childers’ gloriously vivid thriller ‘The Riddle of the Sands’ to Chesterton’s ticklingly clever and hearty ‘The Man Who Was Thursday’. The only thing missing from this series is a railway station bookstall to buy them from, accompanied by the vigorous whistle of an incoming steam engine as you pass over your sixpence piece.

They are, however, £7.99 in the Great Britain of today. This horrific fact alone will probably do enough to keep you up at night, regardless of the thrilling contents within. Happily for Canucks, though, they are less damaging at $10.

Well worth filling a shelf with.