| A Reader’s Delight, by Noel Perrin |
There is, as Noel Perrin writes in the prologue to A Reader’s Delight, “a large category of books just short of classic status that are known only to a handful of lucky readers. Almost anyone who reads a lot is apt to have come across at least one such book–something not in the canon, not famous, probably not even in print–but all the same sheer delight to read. Many lifelong readers have a whole collection of such books…. This volume describes my own collection …”
A Reader’s Delight collects 38 articles Perrin wrote over the course of several years as an occasional columnist for the Washington Post. Only two rules applied in selecting the books covered: “No book less than about fifteen years old was eligible;” and “no book that more than two or three of my colleagues had read got considered.”
• The Adventures of Jonathan Corncob, Loyal American Refugee, Noel Perrin (ed.)
• All Hallows Eve, Charles Williams
• The Best of Friends: Further Letters to Syndey Carlyle Cockerell, Viola Meynell (ed.)
• The Bitter Box, Eleanor Clark
• Born to Race, Blanche Perrin
• The Bottom of the Harbor, Joseph Mitchell
• Bridgeport Bus, Maureen Howard
• A Casual Commentary, Rose Macaulay
• Democracy, Henry Adams
• The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Allan Nevins and Milton Thomas (eds.)
• Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezregusa of Kenko, Kenko
• Fables in Slang, George Ade
• Far Rainbow, Brothers Strugatsky
• A Fine and Private Place, Peter Beagle
• A Genius in the Family, Hiram Maxim
• The Green Child, Herbert Read
• Guard of Honor, James Gould Cozzens
• Indian Summer, William Dean Howells
• Instead of a Letter, Diana Athill
• Islandia, Austin Tappan Wright
• Journal of a Disappointed Man, W.N.P. Barbellion
• Kai Lung’s Golden Hours, Ernest Bramah
• The Maker of Heavenly Trousers, Daniele Vare
• Many Cargoes: Famous Stories of the Sea, W.W. Jacobs
• My Father’s Glory, Marcel Pagnol
• My Mother’s House, Marcel Pagnol
• On Love, Stendhal
• Period Piece, Gwen Raverat
• Riding the Rails, Michael Mathers
• Roman Wall, Bryher
• The Semi-Attached Couple, Emily Eden
• The Silver Stallion, James Branch Cabell
• They Asked for a Paper, C.S. Lewis
• The Three Royal Monkey, Walter de la Mare
• The Valleys of the Assassins, Freya Stark
• The Walls Came Tumbling Down, Henriette Roosenburg
• Watch the North Wing Rise, Robert Graves
• When the Snow Comes, They Will Take You Away, Eric Newby
• Wild Animals I Have Known, Ernest Thompson Seton