Titles being considered by Folio Society for publication

I have just received a Folio Society survey, by email, asking me whether or not I would be interested in buying the following titles which are being considered for future publication:

Tony (sic) Morrison, Beloved

Washington Irving, Tales of Washington Irving

Tim O'Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone

Ian McEwan, Atonement

Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking

John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua

Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

Miguel de Cervantes, Exemplary Stories

Sappho, Poems and Fragments

Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed: Four English Folkways in America

Marcus du Sautoy, Music of the Primes

Liza Picard, Restoration London: Everyday Life in the 1660s

Benedict Spinoza, Ethics

Selected Poems of Elizabeth Bishop

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays

Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano

Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin

Peter Robb , Midnight in Sicily

John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies

Judith Kerr, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Tobias Wolff, This Boy’s Life

Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History

Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival

Robert C O’Brien, Z for Zachariah

John Dos Passos, USA Trilogy

Charles Montagu Doughty, Travels In Arabia Deserta

Claudio Magris, Danube

W G Sebald, The Rings of Saturn

Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf

François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

Henry Green, Loving

Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

An Anthology of Thomas Jefferson

John McGahern, That They May Face the Rising Sun

Alan Lomax, The Land Where the Blues Began

Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It

Wow, what an interesting selection.

I hope I get the survey as there are a few like Wind-up Bird Chronicles, Gargantua and Pantagruel and Exemplary Stories that I'd love to have Folio editions of!

I believe FS pay attention to what's being said here. Many of us devotees have wished for books included in that list. I'm keeping my hopes high, and will certainly answer the survey if and when I receive it.

Just filled out my survey. Double thumbs up for the Wind-up Bird Chronicles and Exemplary Stories. They also asked for suggestions which we've already had a few threads discussing. I requested Mario Vargas Llosa's books.

I've just completed the survey too, although mine had a totally different selection of books, most of which didn't interest me terribly. Your options are far more appealing.

Quite excited about that list though I haven't been asked to complete a survey yet. I'm especially intrigued by the Bishop selection. It's good to see some Post-Whitman American Poets Other than Eliot (PWAPOE?) get the Folio treatment. I'd love to see a WCW sometime in the future.

Zamyatin, Lowry, Pushkin, Sappho, Rabelais....all would be automatic purchases in my case.

I also got a survey but the list of books is different

Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks (Guide price: US$99.95)
Alice Munro, Selected Stories (Guide price: US$59.95)
James M Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice (Guide price: US$49.95)
Dmitri Shostakovich, Testimony: The Memoirs of Dimitri Shostakovich (Guide price: US$59.95)
Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil (Guide price: US$59.95)
Elizabeth Bowen, The Last September (Guide price: US$49.95)
Alasdair Gray, Lanark (Guide price: US$69.95)
Theodore Zeldin, The French (Guide price: US$99.95)
Freya Stark, Southern Gates of Arabia (Guide price: US$59.95)
Auguste Escoffier, Ma Cuisine (Guide price: US$179.95)
Ludwig Bemelmans, How to Travel Incognito (Guide price: US$49.95)
Walter de la Mare, The Three Royal Monkeys (Guide price: US$49.95)
Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach (Guide price: US$169.95, Two Volumes)
J G Ballard, Drowned World (Guide price: US$49.95)
Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (Guide price: US$59.95)
Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924 (Guide price: US$179.95, Three Volumes)
Antony Beevor & Artemis Cooper, Paris After the Liberation (Guide price: US$89.95)
Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me (Guide price: US$49.95)
Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination (Guide price: US$49.95)
Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio (Guide price: US$49.95)
Virtruvius, On Architecture (Guide price: US$69.95)
Derek Brewer, Medieval Comic Tales (Guide price: US$49.95)
Ian Stewart, Taming the Infinite (Guide price: US$55.95)
Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (Guide price: US$49.95)
Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (Guide price: US$49.95)
Tim Mackintosh-Smith (Ed), Travels of Ibn Battutah (Guide price: US$69.95)
Samuel Beckett, The Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable (Guide price: US$149.95, Three Volumes)
Robin Lane Fox, The Classical World (Guide price: US$109.95)
Selected Letters of John Keats (Guide price: US$59.95)
Rudolph Eric Raspe, The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Guide price: US$49.95)
Junichiro Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters (Guide price: US$79.95)
Dervla Murphy, Full Tilt: Ireland to India With a Bicycle (Guide price: US$55.95)
Selected Poems of Ted Hughes (Guide price: US$59.95)
Conrad D Totman, A History of Japan (Guide price: US$109.95)
Dee Brown, Folktales of the Native American (Guide price: US$49.95)
Nina Bawden, Carrie’s War (Guide price: US$49.95)
Ian Seraillier, Silver Sword (Guide price: US$49.95)
Philip Roth, American Pastoral (Guide price: US$69.95)
Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War (Guide price: US$179.95, Two Volumes)
Antal Szerb, Journey by Moonlight (Guide price: US$49.95)

Duplicate

>8 AnnieMod: AnnieMod, was the two volume Hofstadter Gödel, Escher, Bach and Metamagical Themas?

I nearly squee'd out loud when I saw the volume of Emerson's Essays! If there were a buy button next to that on the survey, I would have clicked on it immediately!

Wow, just wow, I haven't received any list, but I am always so intrigued by those who do. You must buy many, many FS books, right?

>10 kdweber:

I believe it is Gödel, Escher, Bach in 2 volumes. That is the description:

'Every few decades an unknown author brings out a book of such depth, clarity, range, wit, beauty and originality that it is recognized at once as a major literary event. This is such a work' (Martin Gardner). 'What is a self, and how can a self come out of inanimate matter?' This is the riddle that drove Hofstadter to write this extraordinary book. Linking together the music of J S Bach, the graphic art of Escher and the mathematical theorems of Gödel, as well as ideas drawn from logic, biology, psychology, physics and linguistics, Douglas Hofstadter illuminates one of the greatest mysteries of modern science: the nature of human thought processes.

PS: And I believe what petertemplar posted above in 9 is what I see also but in a different order. So it is most likely based on the location

My list was different from the three so far listed. I wonder how many different lists they put out (Sadly, I didn't think to copy it). I'm the US by the way.

A second survey email, this time with different suggested titles, has been sent to my office email address. Some rather more obscure suggestions here I think:

R H Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism

Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde

Alfred Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz

Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters

H L Mencken, American Language: A Preliminary Inquiry Into the Development of English in the United States

Rosamond Lehmann, The Weather in the Streets

Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy

Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life

Robert Westall, The Machine Gunners

Ian MacDonald, Revolution in the Head

Georgio Bassani, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

Stefan Zweig, Beware of Pity

Mark Urban, Rifles: Six Years with Wellington’s Legendary Sharpshooters

Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox and Selected Essays

Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation

Mary Shelley, The Last Man

Philip K Dick, Ubik

Selected Poems, Robert Burns

Anthony Burgess, Unearthly Powers

Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander

E P Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class

Keith Douglas, Alamein to Zem Zem

William Golding, The Inheritors

José Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses

Pearl

Selected Poems and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke

Lucy M Boston, The Children of Green Knowe

Mary Beard, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town

Frederic Manning, Her Privates We

Malba Tahan, The Man Who Counted: A Collection of Mathematical Adventures

Nathaniel Philbrick, In The Heart of the Sea: the Epic True Story That Inspired Moby-Dick

Spike Milligan, Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall

Christina Stead, The Man Who Loved Children

Susan Sontag, On Photography

Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court

Patrick Hamilton, Hangover Square

Mark Cousins, The Story of Film

Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy

Leo Marks, Between Silk & Cyanide: A Codemaker’s War 1941-1945

>14 Tanglewood:

Are you sure it was different and not just reordered? Mine and petertemplar's is the same - just in a different order.

>15 millbank2: This is the list I got.

>18 Tanglewood:
I received this list as well.

They've done something to the survey this year. I tried doing the old "change the letter in the URL" trick but I kept getting the same list - all that changed was the currency of the prize voucher (GBP, UDS, or AUSD). Can't figure out how to get the alternate lists to come up.

Also wondering if they targeted the lists this year, based on your purchases. My list had several books of interest, whereas past years they've held little in the way of appealing titles.

I received the same as #1 and sent in my survey. Ian McEwan, Ken Kesey, Vikram Seth, Rilke, Hughes, Bishop, Munro. Lots of good stuff.

#20 - I doubt it, since each list seems to contain a selection of the same kinds of books. For example, each appears to have a Booker winner, a crime novel, a couple of more contemporary British novels, a sci-fi book a poet, Spinoza or Kierkegaard, a short story collection, Dos Passos or Dreiser, etc. You must have gotten lucky!

>20 beatlemoon:

I'm curious to know who gets these surveys. I'd love to fill one out. Maybe the big spenders or the long-time members?

milbank's list seems quite different from petertemplars. I'm quite enthusiastic about milbank's. I think they must tailor the lists, because the two are quite different.

EDIT: Just found the survey waiting for me in an email. No titles different from those mentioned by someone else. I didn't see Sappho, Lowry, or Rabelais on my list but was sure to write in those titles when asked later. Forgot to mention that I'd like to see more books with colored top edges! Of the titles I was given, I responded that I was most eager to see Rilke, Ken Kesey, and Bassani.

They look different but beatlemoon is right - they are very very similar -- same type of books, just different books...

I would also add that in addition to asking about possible new titles, they are also asking for input on upgrades to the website and whether or not non-members should be able to purchase individual books from them.

I think Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes would be an excellent companion to the Runciman History of the Crusades set.

>24 spacmann:

Right. And if you want to have two prospectus - the usual one in the autumn and a second one in the spring (in an attempt to offer more books to our members and blah blah)

>24 spacmann:

I suggested that they have a discussion forum on the website.

> 24

If I get the survey, I'll suggest that the website offer a wish list for members.

>28 drasvola:

That's what I proposed :)

> 29

Telepathy!

16. > I got the same list you did, which, to me, is much less interesting than the other two... but, any one list contains no more than 2 or 3 volumes which interest me. I think they are spreading the most interesting volumes out instead of having them all on one list. :/

What I answered for the 4 I would buy*:

James M Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice (!!!)
Ian Seraillier, Silver Sword
Nina Bawden, Carrie’s War
Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination

*I have two boys so children's books rise to the top.

Lindgren, Lowry, Zamyatin, Bester, Szerb for me!

I got the list from #1, and said "would definitely buy" to Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. I also suggested a wishlist for the website :-D The survey also requested my views on "allowing non-members to buy individual books", although I was assured that non-members would not get any membership benefits like members-only special prices. For some reason I was under the impression that this was already possible on the website, but I guess I was wrong.

ooo GEB in two volumes. Do want! I posted on this forum that they should do this volume a while back. I thank the mole gods! You have been trawling well.

Too bad they haven't sent me a questionnaire.

>34 belemnite:

I don't know why, although I feel an uneasiness allowing non-members to buy individual books, I think that as long as they are offered individual books and not LE I would be alright. What I don't want is hysteria that is on EP LE, of some books being sold out within months. I like the fact that FS LE are still available months, and years after publication. It makes it easier for me at least to purchase the ones I want later on when I can afford them.

I would go down in depression if the FS LE were to be sold out right after publication. I still cry to sleep every night when I think about Rubaiyat and Pepys. I hope I can get the Rime of the Ancient Mariner in the next couple of months

Bah! I took the survey and after grumpily choosing the 4 books that I would definitely buy, excoriated them for continuing to ignore my request for more Barbara Pym and The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold. Oh well, at least it finally looks like Black Lamb and Grey Falcon will get the FS treatment.

>20 beatlemoon: They've done something to the survey this year. I tried doing the old "change the letter in the URL" trick but I kept getting the same list - all that changed was the currency of the prize voucher (GBP, UDS, or AUSD). Can't figure out how to get the alternate lists to come up.
They've changed the numbers instead: 111, 112 and 113, with the letter designating the country.

>31 1dragones:. I got the same list you did, which, to me, is much less interesting than the other two... but, any one list contains no more than 2 or 3 volumes which interest me. I think they are spreading the most interesting volumes out instead of having them all on one list.
Well, I think that all depends: most of those raved about here were of no interest to me at all. The list I got (the one listed in >1 millbank2:) was comfortably the dullest one for me of the lot. I have to be honest, I didn't even recognise half the titles, whereas the one millbank says contains more obscure titles contains far more that I have read, enjoyed, and would buy!!

My four from list one:
Marcus du Sautoy, Music of the Primes
Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works
Claudio Magris, Danube
Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It
or possibly the Angela Carter
I find the fiction on this list singularly uninteresting.

My four from list two:
Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
Lucy M Boston, The Children of Green Knowe
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
Malba Tahan, The Man Who Counted: A Collection of Mathematical Adventures
but I would be happy with several others

My four from list three:
Dervla Murphy, Full Tilt: Ireland to India With a Bicycle
Theodore Zeldin, The French
Robin Lane Fox, The Classical World
Ian Stewart, Taming the Infinite
but then, there's the Freya Stark, the Mackintosh-Smith, or indeed Amin Maalouf or Nina Bawden

basically, lists 2 and 3 look interesting, list 1, for me at least, as dull as ditchwater beyond those nominated above (which do appeal). But that's the one they sent me originally....?

I didn't make a note of the books on my survey, but I'm sure that it wasn't entirely identical to any of those listed above.

I too suggested a Wants List option. I also said that I didn't have a problem with one-off purchases by non-members, though I hadn't considered LE's when replying.

I didn't think the list offered me was that good, but I could manage if that is what they went with.

> 38

My choices in list # 1 are Atonement, Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Exemplary Novels (selection?), USA Trilogy, Gargantua and Pantagruel and Music of the Primes. Would order them right away.

From list 1, I'd want
Newman's Apologia,
Arabia Deserta,
Magris's Danube,
and perhaps the Alan Lomax;

from list 2, the one I was emailed about,
Antony Beevor's Paris after the Liberation,
Zeldin on The French,
Ian Stewart's Taming the Infinite,
and the Freya Stark;

and from list 3, the one I find fewest good picks in,
RH Tawney's Religion and the rise of capitalism,
Berlin Alexanderplatz,
EP Thompson's Making of the English working class,
and The story of film.

Very little fiction to take my eye.

Very little fiction to take my eye
This was the biggest disappointment on these lists: the adult fiction was downright obscure and/or dull. Just one book really stood out - A Suitable Boy - the rest, total yawn.

>41 affle:

Hmmm, list 3 looks interesting--I'd like both the Tawney and Berlin Alexanderplatz!

I just looked over this list more closely and saw two must-haves I didn't notice when I skimmed it before--Pearl, and hopefully, unlike they did with Sir Gawain they will print the Middle English--and Frederic Manning's Her Privates We, although I hope they mean the original first publication edition which was titled The Middle Parts of Fortune. Oddly, this was one of my write-ins on the survey.

For some reason I really do not want to see The Suitable Boy in a Folio edition in a one volume edition...

>42 Willoyd:

I'll be happy if they do Kesey, Zamytin and Under the Volcano.

Here are the four I want and selected from my survey:

J G Ballard, Drowned World (Guide price: US$49.95)
Dee Brown, Folktales of the Native American (Guide price: US$49.95)
Ian Seraillier, Silver Sword (Guide price: US$49.95)
Derek Brewer, Medieval Comic Tales (Guide price: US$49.95)

I also asked for The Tremor of Forgery.

The Killer Inside Me would be about as dark as FS can go. That one would surprise me.

I really like the fiction I see on all the lists. Good mix.

> 15

I have had this selection in my questionnaire. A few good titles, but I would have to see more of the actual FS editions to make up my mind.

I see many more than a few good titles. Considering the newer fiction only (those that I've read, of course) I must say I'd risk some money--a modest, but not middling sum--betting that most people would enjoy the proposed titles by Angela Carter, Haruki Murakami, Henry Green, Junichiro Tanizaki, Antal Szerb, Giorgio Bassani and Christina Stead! And, with the exception of Green and Stead, whose works IMO aren't particularly visually flamboyant, they'd all be a feast for an illustrator's imagination.

Albion's Seed is a book I've long wanted to read. A Folio edition might finally push me over the edge.

In my house the film of the Adventures of Baron Munchausen is considered a classic. A fine edition of the book would be the only absolutely unequivocal automatic buy on any of the three lists.

Though a two-volume A Sutable Boy could come close. As would The Travels of Ibn Battutah.

Cervantes' Novelas Ejemplares was the first book I ever read in Spanish. I unfortunately have lost my ability to speak the language, but I could probably pick it up again if I were willing to make the effort.

I just bought Fox's The Classical World in hardback. I always seem to buy books shortly before Folio publishes superb editions of them.

I recall that I have suggested they publish Zamyatin's We several times. The mole lives!

Of course, several others could find their way to my shelves given some time to think about them.

(edited for spelling)

#50

Another Münchhausen fan! I have three versions, the early Raspe, and the retelling/additions by Gottfried August Bürger, two of those illustrated by Doré. I grew up with Doré's illustrations and have no wish to see a different baron--but Folio could probably persuade me, if they chose well!

No survey for me, alas, but I'd vote early and often for Pearl. I'd love to see Marie Borroff's translation with facing-page Middle English, in an elegant, slim volume. It would have an honored spot on my bookshelf.

I got the list in Message 15, which is the least interesting of the three posted for me. There was nothing that really got me excited but enough of interest that I would not have a problem finding four.

I was puzzled by their comment about two catalogs. Why not just say they are going to publish more books? I wonder if that means they would go to six month memberships instead of a year, meaning you would have to purchase some minimum number of books from each catalog to maintain your membership.

I would probably go with the Pearl, the Döblin, Ken Kesey, and maybe the Burns or the Ortega y Gasset, or the Zweig. I'd have an easier time with the other list but the reality will be a combination of these lists and others not even listed yet. So we'll see.

I never get around to keeping my "wishlist" up to date so I'm always pulling things out of my head when asked what titles I would like to see. So I know I forgot to plug a lot of books. Here's what I remember of what I requested:

Memory of Fire trilogy by Eduardo Galeano
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
The Green House, Aunt Julia and the Screenwriter, or Conversation in the Cathedral by Vargas Llosa
Red Strangers by Elspeth Jocelin Grant Huxley
Petals of Blood by Thiong'o, Ngugi wa
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
Lion of Ireland by Morgan Llywelyn
The RiddleMaster of Hed trilogy by Patricia McKillip

The list I received was the same as in message 1 but in a different order. I picked the following 4 books:

Ian McEwan - Atonement
Peter Robb - Midnight in Sicily
Allan Lomax - The Land Where the Blues began
W G Sebald - The Rings of Saturn

There were several others I would also have as well as quite a few off the other lists. - I will need to start saving!

Isn't it interesting how varied our preferences are?

I received the list in #15. I chose Mark Twain's “Connecticut Yankee”, H L Mencken's “The American Language”, Patrick Hamilton's “Hangover Square” and Anthony Burgess's “Earthly Powers” as my preferences. I also put in yet another request for a FS Flashman series.

> 55

I second your Flashman suggestion - it would be great to have some illustrated versions.

I see that the Everyman's Library has bought out a fine cloth bound omnibus edition of the first three Flashman books.

But I fear there might be a few politically-correct feminists in Folio HQ who would consider Flashman a step too far :-)

I can't possibly think why - every single female that Flashy meets comes off better in the reader's eyes.

My list was the same as millbank's, and for my four I chose:

Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays
Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road
Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

But I also would most likely buy the following three as well:
Tony (sic) Morrison, Beloved
Washington Irving, Tales of Washington Irving
Ian McEwan, Atonement

And on Annie's list I'd be interested in:
Dee Brown, Folktales of the Native American

For my write-ins, I continued my campaign for the Little House series and some Margaret Atwood, as well as asking for a new edition of Brave New World.

>38 Willoyd: - those clever bastards! Thanks for the tip. Maybe if I have time today, I'll go take the other two surveys. :)

Folktales of the Native American by Dee Brown was on the survey I was directed to and I am very pleased, as I listed Myths and Legends of North America as a proposed 2011 title in the If you were FS literary editor for 2011 ... thread.

I put all the titles mentioned in that thread in a spreadsheet on Google Docs. If you haven't responded to the survey yet you may want to take a look as it may have some titles you might wish to suggest. Titles in bold red are ones that FS announced/published at the time I last updated the spreadsheet. If anyone sees other titles recently published please let me know so I can make those updates.

I have just finished my survey and I didnt choose any four novels, none of the above was my choice. If the Philip k Dick novel had been on my list that would have been a big yes please, but I have never heard of most of these books and the few I have didnt peak my interest at all.

As for the suggestions, I rattled on about one site for all that offered all books to everybody and if there are valid reasons as to why they cant, then say so. Learn how to use a currancy converter, it cant be that hard as everyone else has learnt how. I am sure I asked for a wish list for the site. Am fine with non members buying books as long as they dont get the specials or LEs, and asked for lots of scifi/fantasy novels to be wacked onto their list, but wont hold my breath.

That about sums up my survey experience,

I just went back and looked at the 90 titles from last year's surveys. I'm no longer hopeful of seeing any of those titles, or any of this year's titles anytime soon. For anyone interested here are last year's 90 titles in no particular order:

2010 NEW TITLE RESEARCH

Sheridan Le Fanu - In a Glass Darkly
Desmond Seward - The Wars of the Roses: Through the Lives of Five Men and Women
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
Lord George Gordon Byron - Selected Poems (Penguin Classics)
Benjamin Cowburn - No Cloak No Dagger
J.E. Gordon - Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down
Walter Burkert - Greek Religion
G.E.R. Lloyd - Greek Science
Herman Melville - Shorter Fiction
Hermann Hesse - Steppenwolf
Richard Holmes - Tommy: The British Soldier On The Western Front
Ogden Nash - Candy is Dandy
Charles Doughty - Travels in Arabia Deserta
Cicero - Orations
Giles Milton - Big Chief Elizabeth: How England’s Adventurers Gambled And Won The New World
Alison Uttley - A Traveller in Time
Geoffrey Household - Rogue Male
V.S. Pritchett - Selected Stories
Katherine Paterson - Bridge to Terabithia
George Johnson - Ten Most Beautiful Experiments
Alan Garner - The Owl Service
Patrick White - Voss
The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor
Raphael Holinshed - Chronicles Of England, Scotland and Ireland
Agatha Christie - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Catherine Storr - Marianne Dreams
Alain de Botton - Consolations of Philosophy
Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being
A. H. Layard - Discoveries In The Ruins Of Nineveh And Babylon
Emily Dickinson - Selected Poems
Patrick Leigh - Fermor, Mani
Patricia Lynch - The Turfcutter’s Donkey
Molly Keane - Good Behaviour
John Fowles - The Magus
Seamus Heaney - Selected Poems
Sigmund Freud - The Interpretation of Dreams
Sebastian Haffner - The Meaning Of Hitler
Ryszard Kapuscinski - Travels With Herodotus
John Gribbin - In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat
Matt Ridley - The Red Queen
Charles Chaplin - My Autobiography
Albert Camus - The Outsider
Polybius - The Rise Of Rome
Paul Fussell - The Great War And Modern Memory
Stephen Hawking - A Brief History of Time
François Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel
George Macdonald - The Princess and the Goblin
Richard Hillary - The Last Enemy
Michael Herr - Dispatches
Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar
Friedrich Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Carlo Collodi - Pinocchio
Thomas Pynchon - Gravity’s Rainbow
Jaroslav Hašek - The Good Soldier Švejk
James Joyce - Finnegans Wake
John Polidori - The Vampyre
Raymond Carver - Selected Stories
Leon Garfield - Smith
Richard Ellmann - James Joyce
Henry Treece - The Children’s Crusade
John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces
Flann O’Brien - At Swim-Two-Birds
Anton Chekhov - Complete Plays
Serge Lancel - Carthage: A History
Susan Cooper - Over Sea, Under Stone
Apsley Cherry-Garrard - The Worst Journey In The World
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
Robert Tressell - The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
Ivan Turgenev - On the Eve
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood: A True Account Of A Multiple Murder And Its Consequences
Julio Cortázar - Hopscotch
G.R. Elton - The Practice of History
William Dalrymple - White Mughals
Ernst Junger - Storm of Steel
Simon Singh - Fermat’s Last Theorem
Tobias Smollett - The Adventures of Roderick Random
Joris-Karl Huysmans - Against Nature
Salman Rushdie - Shame
James McPherson - The Battle Cry of Freedom
George Gamow - Complete Mr Tompkins
Neal Ascherson - The Black Sea
Dorothy Wordsworth - Journals
L.M. Montgomery - Anne of Avonlea
William Faulkner - As I Lay Dying
Joshua Slocum - Sailing Alone Around the World
Naguib Mahfouz - Palace Walk
René Descartes - Meditations
Wallace Stevens - Selected Poems
Carl von Clausewitz - On War

>20 beatlemoon: They've done something to the survey this year. I tried doing the old "change the letter in the URL" trick but I kept getting the same list - all that changed was the currency of the prize voucher (GBP, UDS, or AUSD). Can't figure out how to get the alternate lists to come up.
>38 Willoyd: They've changed the numbers instead: 111, 112 and 113, with the letter designating the country.

This is the same as last year: When I was in last year's survey thread (see my previous post) I came accross a post that stated the number changed the survey and the letter changed the country.

>61 LucasTrask:

I read in an earlier thread that As I Lay Dying was coming out later this year? I certainly hope that's the case.

I would do cartwheels if The Good Soldier Svejk was published. That would immediately shoot to the top of my buy list and would make me all the more impatient for a War With The Newts.

As LucasTrask says, we're unlikely to see many (if indeed any) of these titles. A pity as there is some superb stuff across the lists, that I would love to see done by Folio and would be compelled to buy: Sebald, Magris, Yates, Wolff, McGahern, Manning, Lowry, Robb, Szerb, West...plus some things I'm not familiar with but would certainly consider, such Doebler & Zamyatin.

I would imagine that even if the Society determines there is sufficient interest for a title, securing the rights can be a stumbling block that can slow or halt publication plans altogether. I know it can take the Library of America years to secure rights for their publications; Folio likely is no different.

>56 millbank2: I picked up the EL edition, and enjoyed them very much. Interestingly, they were three early Flashman novels, but not in sequence (not 1-2-3). Leads me to believe no other editions are planned. I thought the books were hilarious and I think EL editions are very good reading editions. The paper and the typography are great and easy on the eyes. I'm not sure if I would read more. Three might be my Flashy fill.

>63 menteith:

Folio did a very nice War With the Newts several years ago--have you tried online for a used copy?

Let me cast a lonely vote for Tim O Brien's If Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home "-(cadence song) in case they cannot secure the rights for "The things they Carried-which is a more recent and mature work..(and costlier probably) Both are humble, darkly funny confessions. And the latter is masterly written.

>68 P3p3_Pr4ts:

One of my four choices as well, Pepe--so you're not alone!

(And what about a trilogy?--the two O'Brien's you mentioned plus Going After Caciato.

#53

I was puzzled by their comment about two catalogs. Why not just say they are going to publish more books?

jveezer, I think that reflects on the experiment they conducted on Canadians this year. We received an autumn catalogue last year, and then the spring one recently. We were able to renew membership with two books, but: oddly, some received explicit information they will need to buy two more in spring, and some, like myself, didn't. (Not in print, not online--I only had the message about renewing with two books, no mention of additional requirements). While the rest of you got to see the entire year's new offers (barring the usual unannounced additions and reprints) last autumn, we couldn't--not even online. As I said, I wonder what they achieved by this and whether it was worth it.

I'm not sure this practice is meant to translate into more titles per catalogue, though. And I'm not pleased with the loss of one nice thickish annual catalogue in favour of two more brochure-like ones.

I got the list in 8. Not that inspiring, Ibn Battutah was the pick of the bunch, most of the others I want I already have. When asked for suggestions, I put Apsley Cherry-Garrard and Asser's Life of Alfred.

Oh, and Nansen's Farthest North.

I received the list in 1. My four recommended books were Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, The Rings of Saturn, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Travels in Arabia Deserta. My recommended book not on the list was, of course, Flashman.

>67 Django6924:

I conducted a brief but fruitless search not long ago. I can't even find a picture of the folio edition for whatever reason, though apparently there's a 1962 Tales From Two Pockets. If it's reissued or if I find an old copy it will be near or at the top of my list of wants.

>73 menteith:

Yes, I'll take a few pictures and post them.

>74 Django6924:

Excellent! That book holds a special place in my heart as the work that initially got me interested in Central European writers.

I was tempted by all three lists! I'd buy any of these (provided I liked the illustrations and binding, of course):

Toni Morrison, Beloved
Washington Irving, Tales of Washington Irving
Ian McEwan, Atonement
Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories
Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin
John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies
Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf
François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil
*J G Ballard, Drowned World
*Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924
Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me
Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination
*Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto
*Selected Letters of John Keats
Philip Roth, American Pastoral

Mary Shelley, The Last Man
Philip K Dick, Ubik
Selected Poems and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke
Susan Sontag, On Photography
Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy

*These are the 4 I chose from my survey.

One of the things which struck me, and I'm rather ashamed to say this, is how many of the suggested books I'd never heard of.

I am certainly going to be taking a closer look at some of them - whether I get them from the Folio Society or not.

>77 millbank2:

Meh, take it in stride. That's part of the fun. Folio brought The Siege of Krishnapur to my attention--an award winner abroad, but nearly impossible to find in bookshops here in the US.

>22 menteith: I am a long time member (21yrs) and a big buyer. I have been given a questionaire some years and note others. Not this year apparentry! There doesn't seem to be nary rhyme or reason to when you get the questionaire.
>77 millbank2: Consider being a member of FS as being part of being a "Lifelong Learner" and thus putting off the onset of Alzheimer's desease. (Edited for typos)

>22 menteith: I'm not a long time member (into my second year) and not a big buyer. I got the questionnaire. I think it was the same as the one from #1.

From my list, I'd snag
Selected Poems and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke
Susan Sontag, On Photography
Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde

but I would have also wanted:
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays
Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
Dee Brown, Folktales of the Native American

>80 nadyaduck:

Yes, I ended up getting sent one too after all.

So I am after all the only one who did not get the questionnaire.

>83 ironjaw:

I still don't have one either. I don't suppose anyone would want to post the link so we could access it? Or does it not work like that?

Here's my link (it should lead to the second list posted here). I'm not sure what it will turn up for others!

Copying the link here as well, just in case:
http://links.mkt860.com/ctt?kn=1&m=36380578&r=NzU3Nzc0MDAzNAS2&b=0&a...

I didn't get one, either.

> 83, 84, 86

You are not alone. I'm still waiting for one.

>85 SpoonFed:

Thanks, that link worked a charm!

Also your list in #76 has many of the same books that I would choose!

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is a nice book.

It would be really neat to see an artist tackle the Munchausen saga, but those boots are impossibly big to fill. Still, it could be done.

Exemplary Stories, my gosh, nice stuff. Sometimes feeling like Kafka's shorter works. So much potential there for an illustrator as well.

>50 coynedj:
Which version? Gilliam's? I was one of the few who saw that in the theatre when it came out. I saw the Nazis one on DVD last year and was a bit surprized how much was lifted from it by Gilliam, or McKeown I guess. But still, his moon sequence, that tracking shot near the end, John Neville...I haven't watched Zeman's version yet...and didn't Méliès do one?

The link worked but I did not go next. There is a mailing id in the link so maybe it is tied up to the individual member - in this case spoonfed?

>90 ironjaw: I wasn't sure about that either. The survey did ask me for my membership number at one point (one of the early pages) so I guess that would circumvent that problem. At the end it also asks for your mailing address and email address in order to enter you into the prize draw.

I think it all should be fine, but certainly enter at your own risk!

>50 coynedj:
Which version? Gilliam's? I was one of the few who saw that in the theatre when it came out. I saw the Nazis one on DVD last year and was a bit surprized how much was lifted from it by Gilliam, or McKeown I guess. But still, his moon sequence, that tracking shot near the end, John Neville...I haven't watched Zeman's version yet...and didn't Méliès do one?

Gilliam's indeed. I did not know of any other versions. I've seen the film easily a dozen times (kids love to watch movies over and over again), and it never fails to entertain. When I take a sip of wine, I still often do my best to imitate Neville's "Not bad", which of course leads to a brilliant adventure.

Now I must see it again - it's been two years or so!

When is the Isaac Asimov's Foundation volumes going to be published by the FS?

>91 SpoonFed:

I think it might be us entering at your risk!

Worst case really is that they won't listen to us and none of us will win the £50 voucher I guess...

>69 Django6924: Thanks so much Django:somewhat soothing to know one is not the only fish in the pond..

and trilogies do seem to work wonders with our completist streak.. (Kafka, Le Carré..)

>90 ironjaw: etc...In theory if the Society considered just each and every voluntarily submitted survey.... this would affect their sample's representativeness.(age, genre, previous orders..bla bla) With a membership number, they have the tools to correct this afterwards.. It's still a good idea to send your own , methinks..

Would definitely like to see Toni Morrison's Beloved in a beautifully bound edition. Possibly Folio's first African-American (haven't got the Folio 60 on me to check that!).

They published I know why the caged bird sings not so long ago.

>63 menteith:

menteith, my brain shortcircuited on the Folio War With the Newt--the Capek book I was thinking of was the 1962 FS Tales From Two Pockets. My copy of Newts is a ratty odl Allen & Unwin from the late 1930s. Sorry.

I wish FS would do the book--and RUR.

>98 Django6924:

No problem. I too am stuck with a ratty copy until/unless Folio does a version. I see a new paperback edition on amazon.com and two newer editions on the UK equivalent. Perhaps it's becoming popular?

>93 r0lan6: I have just started reading the Everyman edition of Foundation. It would make an excellent work for publication by Folio. May I push again for Flasman as an other author for publication by Folio.

>93 r0lan6:

About 3 seconds before my order for them is done... Now if only my crystal ball was working to see when that is happening...

>61 LucasTrask:
Stumbled across this post again.
By my reckoning, 22 of the 90 titles listed here have been published in the nearly 3 years since it was mooted. That's a decent hit rate in my book. More importantly, it surely means that a number of further titles here are still publication possibilities.

I've been told that Folio maps publication schedules at least a couple of years in advance. It would be interesting to know how they balance capitalising on successes (ie with more of the same or similar) versus creating variety year-to-year (which they seem to be keener to do).

>102 ian_curtin:
It's rather more than that. I make it at least 33, viz:

Sheridan Le Fanu - In a Glass Darkly
Desmond Seward - The Wars of the Roses
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
Benjamin Cowburn - No Cloak No Dagger
G.E.R. Lloyd - Greek Science
Herman Melville - Shorter Fiction
Cicero - Orations
Giles Milton - Big Chief Elizabeth
Alison Uttley - A Traveller in Time
V.S. Pritchett - Selected Stories
George Johnson - Ten Most Beautiful Experiments
Raphael Holinshed - Chronicles Of England, Scotland and Ireland
A. H. Layard - Discoveries In The Ruins Of Nineveh And Babylon
Molly Keane - Good Behaviour
Sebastian Haffner - The Meaning Of Hitler
Ryszard Kapuscinski - Travels With Herodotus
John Gribbin - In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat
Albert Camus - The Outsider
Friedrich Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Carlo Collodi - Pinocchio
John Polidori - The Vampyre
Leon Garfield - Smith
Serge Lancel - Carthage: A History
Susan Cooper - Over Sea, Under Stone
Apsley Cherry-Garrard - The Worst Journey In The World
Ivan Turgenev - On the Eve
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood
Ernst Junger - Storm of Steel
Simon Singh - Fermat’s Last Theorem
Neal Ascherson - The Black Sea
William Faulkner - As I Lay Dying
René Descartes - Meditations
Carl von Clausewitz - On War

So I have some hopes that another half-dozen or so that I'd like to see come through from that survey - especially Mani and Travels in Arabia Deserta - will eventually appear.

A serendipitous bit of thread revival; I'd been contemplating asking about the appearance of books listed in FS surveys (I received my first last year). I'm very pleased to see that three books mentioned in the opening post, Eugene Onegin, The Bloody Chamber and Restoration London are among Folios newest releases, and that titles from the 2010 list have been recently published. Now I know that those enticing lists have a life expectancy beyond what I'd imagined, and are much more fruitful. Seeing those survey lists offered before I became a member is impressive, such diversity.

Oooh PLEASE let the forthcoming Byron be in Folio Poets format!

Still impatiently awaiting the Agatha Christie titles they promised us.

>106 eatanygoodbooks:

To be fair, they never promised them... :)

I've been meaning to read Agatha Christie for ages. Does anyone know whether a publisher has issued fine editions of her books?

>108 ironjaw:

Nope... noone.

Not fine editions as such, but there is a set of facsimiles of the first editions around - I've seen it in bookshops, but took in no details as I don't read her.

>110 affle:

I am not a fan of these (and I read her).

107 - I can't find the Facebook post, but I recall them mentioning it and saying 4 new books of hers are coming early 2014. I remember brining up The Murder on the Orient Express, and they said I was in luck. Has this changed? This was back in September maybe.

Edit: Found the post. Hope the link works: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.521716654509043.109873485.225978247416...

>108 ironjaw: It depends how fine you mean! In the 70s Heron produced a complete Agatha Christie series which was issued by subscription and is quite collectable without being expensive. The volumes are smallish, red faux leather bound ('kidron' the publisher called the binding, somewhat tongue-in-cheek), use good quality paper, have sewn in ribbons, and specially commissioned monochrome illustrations throughout. The printing was done by Edito-Service S.A. in Geneva. The books are a great size for reading and carrying around, and affordable if you want the whole Christie series, even if they're not as fine as FS sewn bindings.

> 108, 113

To add to what Cronshaw has said, you might also like to consider the facsimilie first edition Christie novels published by Harper Collins. They are delightful books. Most of them are still available on Amazon.

>103 affle:
Thanks, I scanned rather then counting precisely - that's an even better hit rate!

> 113 "kidron"

I seem to remember it wasn't just kidron but genuine kidron!

>116 boldface: You're right, I remember that now, cheeky rascals!

Thanks Cronshaw and David, those Heron editions sounds perfect. I'll check Abe for them. I'll also try to search for facsimilie first edition Christie on Amazon. Those sound very interesting and worth having

>108 ironjaw:: Easton Press has made some Agatha Christie's. They did "And Then There Were None" as part of the Reader's Choice series. They also made a set of 6 volumes with Murder on the Orient Express, Mysterious Affair at Styles, Death on the Nile, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The ABC Murders, and Mystery of the Blue Train. They are no longer available except on ebay and they are generally overpriced on ebay.

Thanks indosky.

119 > Thanks for that info. I'll have to try to keep an eye open for that.

Not sure if this has been posted before, but just found some info on a new publication - Loving by Henry Green. Has anyone read it? It sounds like something I'd like. Also the cover art featured looks really good.

http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=1316