Penguin Releases Some Classy New Classics

If you see some suspicious looking paperbacks spilling out of your teenager's backpack, don't jump the gun. You might just be seeing the new face of Freshman English.

Penguin has come out with a new line called Penguin Graphic Classics that has a lot of book lovers drooling. Not your ordinary paperback, these volumes speak volumes before you even get to page one. The covers are new and edgy, designed by today's top graphic artists. The bindings have "French flaps"- a sort of self-contained dust jacket construction - and some of the letter graphics are subtly raised and dimensional. Each of the books released to date is customized - the special touches are geared uniquely towards the individual title and the results are pretty spectacular. There are great illustrations, fonts, cutouts within the text itself, and the paper is...well...it's just plain sensual.

There have been six titles released to date:

• Candide by Francois Voltaire
• The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
• The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
• Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
• Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Anderson
• The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

Penguin has another batch of titles due out in the fall, including Lady Chatterly's Lover and The Dharma Bums, both of which hold out some tantalizing graphic design possibilities. The books released to date are in the $12 to $18 price range.