Henry Eliot is the author of The Penguin Classics Book and the presenter of the podcast On the Road with Penguin Classics.
He has organized various literary tours, including a mass public pilgrimage for the National Trust (inspired by William Morris), a recreation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which raised money for the National Literacy Trust, a Lake Poets tour of Cumbria and a quest for the Holy Grail based on Malory’s Morte D’Arthur.
Now, he returns to the bookish for an appropriately literary evening celebrating his new book Eliot’s Book of Bookish Lists…
For the book, Eliot – author, editor and insatiable bookworm – has ransacked the libraries and archives of world literature, compiling hundreds of bookish lists.
This eclectic gallimaufry showcases his favourites: we witness the tragic ends of the Ancient Greek tragedians, learn the name of George Orwell’s pet cockerel and rummage through Joan Didion’s travelling bag; we consider the history of literary fart jokes, orbit the Shakespearean moons of Uranus and meet several pigs with wings.
From the sublime to the ridiculous – and everything in between – Eliot’s lists, recommendations and nuggets of trivia will delight, inspire and surprise anyone who loves reading.