The Diamonds are moving along so slowly that I thought I would cover another subject from 1932.
The Cheney Report was published in the US in 1932. This report was commissioned by the National Association of Book Publishers to examine the overall structure of the book publishing industry and suggest possible improvements.
Cheney recommended standardising the physical size of books. He was also the first to suggest a machine based coding system for the organisation of books. It was not until several decades later that the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) was introduced.
Albatross Books, a German publishing house was established in 1932. They produced the first modern mass-market paperbacks. The first list included ten books with authors such as James Joyce (Albatross Number 1 was Dubliners), Virginia Woolf and Aldous Huxley and was called the Albatross Modern Continental Library.
A possible forerunner to the orange Penguin Classics?
The Royal Shakespeare Company's new theatre was opened on April 23 (Shakespeare's birthday) by the Prince of Wales, after the original theatre was destroyed by fire in 1926. Designed by architect Elisabeth Scott, it was the first major building designed by a woman in Britain.
The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to John Galsworthy for The Forsyte Saga. It is a collection containing three novels and two interludes.
The Pulitzer Prize for a Novel was awarded to Pearl Buck's The Good Earth. I remember reading this in high school and being absolutely blown away.
I did not know until recently that this is the first book in the House of Earth trilogy. Sons and A House Divided are the second and third books, both of which are currently out of print.
Other books published in 1932 include:
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Little House In The Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell
Save Me The Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald - the first and only novel by the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald
Peril At End House by Agatha Christie, the eighth Hercule Poirot book
And of course, many more!
This is a really interesting website that is featuring the top selling books of the last 100 years.
The books I have mentioned are the ones that have remained in print but most of the books that were top sellers in 1932 are no longer in print.
I found it most fascinating to see the books that everyone was reading in 1932.
As you can tell, I do love a book list!
Have you read any of these books? Do you have another favourite book published in 1932?
I have read a Brave New World and I loved loved loved Cold Comfort Farm. The film they made of it is actually fairly faithful to the book and that was what first got me into the book.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favourite books and the movie did it justice. I usually believe the book is better but I really enjoyed the movie of Cold Comfort Farm as well. I haven't read Brave New World since high school so it is on my list for a reread.
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