From The Persephone Quarterly Summer 2005 No. 26

‘Like all voracious readers, I have my own particular likes and dislikes,' Colleen Mondor wrote on  bookslut.com.  'I don't consider myself particularly highbrow or lowbrow, the one thing I have never been, though, is a slave to a certain publisher.  Even the smallest of houses have published titles that I do not like as often as they have turned out those that I enjoy.  So I'm choosey all the time, making sure a book sounds exactly right before I pick it up.  That was how I used to be however, before I discovered Persephone Books.  Now I know exactly what I want to buy four times a year, because it's whatever they are publishing ... Last summer, as they published their fiftieth book, I was struck by the vast difference in the latest offerings discussed in the Quarterly.  The World that was Ours is a memoir by Hilda Bernstein whose husband was arrested and tried with Nelson Mandela as one of the "men of Rivonia" in 1963.  This book is about the days after his arrest and the trial that followed in what was one of South Africa's darkest hours.  The other summer book was Bricks and Mortar by Helen Ashton, a popular but now unknown inter-war author about the life of a London architect over 35 years.  Could there be two books less alike?  And yet they fit so squarely in the Persephone mould. Its collection is eclectic, unusual and often surprising.  The beauty of it is that their readers have happily fallen in love with each successive publication.  Personally, I'm so glad I discovered them and I can hardly wait for my next delivery.'

We are glad to say that this is is also one of the themes of the discussion forum on www.chicklit.com  -the people who log on look forward to their next consignment of our books and then write about them.  Member 633: 'I just finished Julia Strachey's Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, which was a lovely read.  It's a short novella and it captures quite beautifully all of the conflicted emotions running during the few hours before a wedding... Jocelyn Playfair's A House in the Country is a beautiful gem.  It's the story of a woman named Cressida who takes in boarders in a country house during WW11. It's a beautiful look at the Home Front, but also has a  lot to say about how and why a second world war occurred so soon after the first one.  And it's not overly sentimental (like Mrs Miniver).  Strongly recommended.'  Member 66: 'I just finished Kitchen Essays.  What fun! It was written in the early 1920s and is full of things about making do with only one servant and the like.'  Member 2723: 'The best Persephone book I've read so far is Little Boy Lost.  It's just shattering, so moving, and a real page-turner as you are desperate for everything to work out.'