Book description
Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.
Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island,…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Metamorphosis as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Like Frankenstein, this is another iconic work about transformation, power and powerlessness, monstrousness and isolation.
Each time I read it, I am struck by how vivid the central image is, and how sad and stark: Gregor Samsa, who is a young salesman living with his parents and sister, wakes up one day to find that he is a giant cockroach.
Kafka is brilliant at inhabiting this bug-like man, all the details are convincing—what he likes to eat, how he moves. It is a powerful allegory about being shunned and different, and about family dynamics. I have read it many…
From Laurie's list on The best literary fiction about cyborgs and bioengineering.
If you love The Metamorphosis...
Citizen Orlov
Not every fishmonger can be a secret agent.
Journey to an unnamed mountainous country in central Europe at the end of the Great War. Enter Citizen Orlov, a simple fishmonger and an honest, upright citizen, who answers a phone call meant for a secret agent and stumbles into a hidden…
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