Nicolas Bentley Knihy

Thomas Stearns Eliot, nositel Nobelovy ceny za literaturu z roku 1948, je jednou z nejvýznamnějších a nejvlivnějších osobností světové literatury 20. století. Proslul jako rafinovaný básník, dramatik a kritik. Praktická příručka o kočkách se však z celkového obrazu jeho díla výrazně vymyká (dokonce tak, že se o ní mnohé literárněhistorické prameny v přehledech ani nezmiňují). Narušuje totiž dost drasticky jeho celkové důstojně seriózní vyznění, náležíc nesporně k dílkům příležitostným, jednoznačně oddechovým. O životaschopnosti Eliotova kočičího námětu ovšem svědčí samozřejmě muzikál Cats, Eliotovými Kočkami inspirovaný. V historii Broadwaye je to druhý nejdéle uváděný muzikál (po Fantomu opery). Sbírka vychází česky v úplnosti poprvé a je čtvrtým svazkem edice NOS.

George Mikes describes the strange things the English do and say.

Šibalova príručka šikovných mačiek je pútavá kolekcia humorných básní pre deti. Poézia, ktorá ponúka živý a zábavný pohľad na úsmevné vyvádzanie mačiek a slabosti ľudí. Majiteľ mačky spozná možno príkladov správania mačiek, a vnímavý čitateľ uvidí početné paralely v ľudských postojoch a správania. Navyše táto poézia zvyšuje toleranciu čitateľa, jeho súcit a vedomie. Konečne, tieto básne môžu slúžiť ako vynikajúci úvod do Eliotovej poézie, pripravujú čitateľa k pochopeniu jeho humoru, jeho básnickej techniky a dokonca aj niektorých z jeho závažných tém, ktoré sú tu prezentované v relatívne ľahkom tóne.

Nicolas Bentley cartooned for among others the Daily Mail, Sunday Times and Private Eye illustrating Auberon Waugh's Diary. The Prion Cartoon Classic s are an on-going series show-casing the finest and funniest comic cartoonists of the 20th century from Britain, Europe and the USA.

It was over thirty years ago that George Mikes wrote How to be an Alien, the classic vade mecum for foreigners in Britain. The book became required reading for the alien, and an indispensable aid to self-understanding for the native.It is a heavy responsibility to be acknowledged as the leading expert on a subject as tricky as the British. For one thing, even they can change a good deal in thirty years. In acknowledgement of this, Mr Mikes has felt bound to write a new guide.At the heart of the book are the important sections on How to Lose an Empire, Become a Colony, and Stop Being an Island. All these themes are brand new. Others are familiar, but required new treatment. Sex could no longer be despatched in the shortest chapter known to literature (ten words) but called for at least a page (Britons whose self-confidence is wobbly had better skip it). The art of getting lost in London has become infinitely more complex than it was, and what is happening to the language is hair-raising. But the native will find that although his self-esteem takes some hard knocks, he ends in a glow of self-congratulation. It seems that when Great Britain finally becomes a desert island it will have its Robinson Crusoe in the shape of George Mikes.Amid all the changes two things remain the same: Nicholas Bentley is still the perfect illustrator for George Mikes's wit, and a special chemistry still exists between Mikes and his adopted country. The chemistry produced the most famous of all his works, and now it has produced the book to rival it.

George Mikes has written many successful books on a variety of interesting subjects, but one so successful as those on the subject most central to his own experience: his adopted country. The first of these came out in 1946: the ever famous "How to be an Alien." Later he enlarges the picture with "How to be inimitable" and "How to be Decadent." All three books were illustrated by the master of the cartoonists’ art, the late Nicolas Bentley. Here they are, all in one volume, which will make life much easier for today's would-be Brits than it was for those who pervaded them. It is said that a few of the latter actually failed to become indistinguishable from the genuine British article because they found it too tiresome to seek out three separate books: a misfortune that need never again occur to anyone.

George Mikes describes the strange things the English do and say.