February 21st, 2007
Want a free copy of A Clockwork Orange?
Of course you do. So do I. Even though I’m literally tripping over books and could make stepladders out of the sheer numbers piled on my floor to reach stuff that a person of my challenged height can’t get to. But I’m very taken with the UK Independent’s latest giveaway idea. Yep, it’s books, but nice hardback editions. And not just any old Cecilia Ahern or Dan Brown tat, “cutting-edge titles, censored classics and literary landmarks”. Happy days. Ok, so you don’t get them all free - it’ll work like last year’s Irish Independent run of Irish Writer books in that you get the first one free and buy the rest at a discount -but this looks like it could be a nice collection.
You DO get the first one free, Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, this Saturday. After that, you’ll have to pay the equivalent of £3.49 sterling every Saturday, if you want to get all 25.
The full series:
Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
Aldous Huxley -Brave New World
Franz Kafka Metamorphosis
Brendan Behan -Borstal Boy
Gustave Flaubert -Madame Bovary
Alexander Solzhenitsyn -A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Erich Maria Remarque -All Quiet on the Western Front
Leonard Cohen - Beautiful Losers
Alan Paton - Cry, the Beloved Country
Maya Angelou - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
D.H. Lawrence Lady Chatterley’s Lover
William Burroughs - Naked Lunch
Edmund White - A Boy’s Own Story
J.P. Donleavy - The Ginger Man
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five
Mark Twain - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Hubert Selby, Jr. - Last Exit to Brooklyn
Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince
Reinaldo Arenas - Singing from the Well
André Gide - The Vatican Cellars
Henry Miller - Tropic of Cancer
Taslima Nasrin - Shame
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
Later on, I’ll get around to finishing a post on (Irish) women writers and omissions. Interestingly, out of these 25 writers, there are only two women…
February 21st, 2007 at 10:04 am
Not a big fan of Terry’s chocolate myself.
February 21st, 2007 at 10:24 am
I’ll have to start getting the Independent, not a very “Cork” paper though! Thanks for the heads up.
February 21st, 2007 at 10:31 am
How exactly does the deal work? Do you pay extra for the copies of the paper that have the book? The weekend paper market is getting ridiculous with the freebies….kinda sad.
February 21st, 2007 at 11:02 am
Mulley, get back in your box.
Donal, the English Indo is very good at the weekends, I’ve been getting a bit sick of the Guardian/Observer so occasionally pick it up instead.
Ronan, from what I gather, it’ll be like last year’s Irish Indo, I collected all 20 of the Irish Writer series and it worked like this: the first week, you got a free book to start you off/suck you in. Every week after that, there’s usually a token inside the paper and if you want the books, the nice newspaper man or lady tears out the token and asks you for your equivalent-of-£3.49-sterling payment. The paper costs the same if you don’t want the book. Does that make sense?
February 21st, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Ah that’s what I figured…there was a free copy of the Wicker Man in the Observer I think a few weeks ago. Makes me think the business model for the papers is a bit haywire nowadays, but I guess if it keeps us in a job!
February 21st, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Hey Sinead,
That book offer with The Independent looks interesting – there are some great books there. The only downside, of course being that you need to buy The Independent. Which is still preferable to buying the Irish Independent.
February 21st, 2007 at 1:15 pm
free copy of the Wicker Man! damn, I missed that!!
February 21st, 2007 at 1:29 pm
cheers for tthe heads up - uk indo not the worst - as som1 said, better than the irish indo!
‘banned books’ am i wrong or were half of those never banned ?! Borstal boy ? Tom sayer (was it not racist enough?!) Ginger man ?
February 21st, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Why are people so down on the English Indo? I actually quite like it. It’s fairly principled and compassionate without the nauseating London trendiness that bedevils the Guardian/Observer at times.
Also, I lost a lot of respect for D’Observer after they published an absolutely absurd piece on Limerick following the whole Euro millions affair. It was so wide of the mark on practically every front you just had to laugh. I’m sure most journos are wide of the mark a lot of the time (and I just don’t realise it), but when it’s your own back yard you can see it for the nonsense it is.
As for the bukes: some nice wans there. I don’t think their spanking new hardback can replace my tattered, yellowed paperback copy of “Beautiful Losers” though.
February 21st, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Martina, I used to buy the UK Indo in college and switched to the Guardian. It was great back then and I’ve recently started buying it on the odd Saturday when the Gruan doesn’t look much good.
Justin, they’ve had some great world cinema freebies lately, keep an eye out for them.
Onlyaboho, Tom Sawyer and Fahrenheit 451 were banned and I know All Quiet on the Western Front was too, not sure about the rest.
Fustar, I quite like it and the Observer monthly mags, particularly the music and woman mags, have been very shoddy lately. The Woman mag had a piece about Colleen McLoughlin and her chavness a few months back and it was one of most classist, snobby, offensive pieces I’ve ever read.
The bukes = I have more than half of them, but oooo they’d make a lovely set.
February 22nd, 2007 at 5:11 pm
i got the two rohmer dvds a couple of weeks back - great offer tbh. have to agree about the obsserver music monthly; the last issue was terrible.
February 22nd, 2007 at 5:33 pm
The Observer Woman magazine is an embarrassment - absolutely atrocious and a huge wasted opportunity. I thought it would be a glossy, more glamorous version of the Guardian women’s page, but instead it’s a totally vacuous consumer rag that assumes women are only interested in romance and shopping (not that I object to either, by the way, but I don’t want to read about them).
Ohm and the UK Indie is a really good paper - much less annoying than the Grauniad.
March 4th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Doesn’t look like you can get the books anywhere in Ireland but just ordered my copy of A Farewell to Arms there for £3.49.
March 5th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I’d be interested to hear the opinion on this from anyone who’s bought the “bukes”, as you say. I mean, St£3.49, exchange rate, plus delivery (hardback = expensive, i guess). It’s obviously a fine set, but the value seems to have disappeared, no?
And to all you knockers, I just love the London Independent. I don’t I buy it every day, but its front-page editorial policy is exceptional and I tend to pick it up whenever I want to catch up on some of the important world issues: I find the tone and content of its reporting is impressively lacking in journalese, cutting right to the core of the story (if that’s not the most blatant cliche ever…).
Myself, I’ve found the Guardian a lot more unpalatable since the re-brand a year or two back.
March 5th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Stellanova, I hear you on the Observer monthly mags, the women’s is the worst of the lot.
Donal, I tried lots of shops and meant to ring one of the bigger Eason’s branches as I thought they might be doing them, but no joy. I wonder if one of the branches in Dublin’s city centre had them? Never got around to checking. Did you order online?
Hi Shane, it is certainly starting to look costly, especially as the UK postage will be in Sterling too. It’s frustrating that they’re happy to sell their paper here but not to facilitate Irish readers in taking up offers like this. I’m quite torn as I already own about 8 or 9 off the list.
While the Guardian has upped its game in terms of its online content, I find myself less interested in the some aspects of the paper copy. The monthly mags being a case in point. I love the G2 section, especially on Fridays and still prefer the Review Section and Weekend on Saturday’s to the Indo’s ABC section.
March 8th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I ordered online and there was no delivery charge even for Ireland. I think the deal is that you can order it in the week of the book being issued and have no delivery charge, just pay your £3.49. That said, I haven’t got it yet so maybe they’ll be banging on an extra charge before I get it! Hopefully not, I don’t mind ordering online and waiting for the book because it’s quite an impressive collection. Get ordering today though!