Mini Reviews of Mini Books

In 1995, Penguin Books celebrated its 60th anniversary by issuing three box sets of important works: 60 with orange spines (20th century), 60 with black spines (classics), and 30 with yellow spines (children's literature).

About a decade later, I was lucky enough to acquire a complete set of black-spined classics. None of these books are any longer than 100 pages, and each is about the size of a beer coaster. They're mostly either short stories and short essays, or exerpts from much longer tomes. The list of authors runs the gamut from Charles Darwin to Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's a little-rary bookstravaganza. (Ok, that was awful).

Alas, I never got around to reading more than a few of them - until now.

With a little help from my fellow word nerd friend Anita, we're not only going to read, but review (albeit somewhat irreverently) each of these suckers for your entertainment.

The concept is simple: mini reviews of mini books.

                                   - Eli Schuster