pbadeer's Small Press Push

I'm fascinated by the idea of this "challenge". I'm not 100% clear on what I'll be tracking - or more importantly how I'll know if I'm "done" - but I like the idea of putting some emphasis on the works of lesser known publishers.

For my own selfish reasons, I will also likely include "imprints" of some of the larger houses - although they have the deep pockets of rich "parents", these divisions are often living hand to mouth. And some of the work the imprints put out are in a far different class than their larger brethren.

Publishers - A - B - C

Publishers - D - E - F - G

Doubleday - publisher of the New York Public Library Collector's Editions

TO READ
les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - OWNED

The Folio Society - http://www.foliosociety.com/

Publishers - H - I - J - K

Publishers - L - M - N

New Directions Publishers - http://www.ndpublishing.com/home.html

TO READ - Not to Disturb by Muriel Spark

Publishers - O - P - Q - R

Persephone Books - http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/index.asp

Publishers - S - T - U

Publishers - V - W - X - Y - Z

Welcome aboard, pbadeer. I am glad to see another voice on this new forum that is struggling to get off the ground. Varielle is the one as started it, so she could tell you more about what she expects but it has been pretty much autonomous so far. I try to read and discuss a small press book from my unread pile every week or two, but my "challenge" is completely open-ended otherwise. Most of these books are pretty short, so they don't take much time away from other projects. Then I try to learn something about the press which can be more interesting than the book sometimes.

Varielle tends to post a bunch of titles at longer intervals than my onesies. We are so far pretty loosey-goosey about the definition of a small press. First of all, I understand that there really is no official definition in the trade. Sometimes it's done by finances, sometimes by number of titles published per year. I like to do it by number of employees if possible. The trouble is, this information can be very hard to find out, especially the financial. So I would say feel free to define a small press according to your own intuitions. Some that I have included are actually owned by larger presses, such as Klutz which was very small till it was bought by Scholastic, which is large. But I included it anyway. Klutz's products are unique. New Directions was truly small back in the early days in the 1940's, but now, how big is it really? Certainly not a major publishing house, but it does put out a lot of titles. Still, it's a small press for my money. Pushcart, which makes a very big noise, has one employee.

You seem to be inaugurating a more disciplined approach with an alphabetic constraint. This is going to be interesting. So far, so good, because I have learned two things; Persephone is completely new to me and has some authors I like and has an intriguing mission. And I had completely missed that New Directions was reissuing Muriel Spark bigtime. I will have to get busy, I have sadly neglected my Muriel Spark, one of my mother's and Thomas Merton's favorite authors. Thomas Merton was not one of my mother's favorite authors, BTW. She couldn't be in the same room with one of his books without starting to rant and rave with indignation and scorn.

Loosey goosey is good. That way everybody can do their own thing. I'm glad some of you have a system. Maybe you can inspire me to be more organized. :)

New to LT and finding my way around. Here's one for the O List ;-)

Odyssey Books - http://www.odysseybooks.com.au