A commercial in sheep's clothes... that's what you're thinking. But the way I see it, there's no shame in doing the occasional advert if it's in the service of great books.

I realize the classics aren't everyone's cup of tea. In fact, I read with some amusement (and much horror) Joe Queenan's recent column in The New York Times Book Review, in which he revisits the accursed summer reading lists issued like holy writ by high school English departments every June (see "Summer Bummer," 3 June).

Queenan likens reading Thomas Hardy to a pistol-whipping and reminisces, unfondly, how he "never recovered from going toe-to-toe with 'The Return of the Native'" over the course of one long and wasted summer. "Bleak" and "lugubrious" prose seems to be Queenan's chief complaint.

Well, everyone's entitled to his own opinion. As it happens, Olsson's is running a special buy-two-get-one-free sale on Penguin Classics, now through July 26th -- and we've got lots of Hardy, so you can judge for yourself.

Among them:

Far From the Madding Crowd ($8). The names of the characters alone qualify this as a recommended read. Check it out: Bathsheba Everdene (the heroine), Gabriel Oak, William Boldwood, Frank Troy, to name just a few. Far From the Madding Crowd is an archetypal love triangle not to be missed.

The Mayor of Casterbridge ($8). Some critics will say this is Hardy's masterpiece. In any case, if the beginning doesn't grab you (the soon-to-be Mayor of Casterbridge sells his wife at the county fair -- I'm serious), it's a lost cause.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles ($8). Poor Tess. I'll give Queenan this. This is probably Hardy's saddest, bleakest novel -- a big, fat summer bummer indeed. But it's mesmerizing. And as Alexandra likes to say, you could get a dissertation out of the beet field imagery. Tess is the unforgettable portrait of a pure woman wronged.

Among the other thieves of summer Queenan names is George Eliot. How can you not like George Eliot? If The Mill on the Floss isn't one of the most devilishly funny novels from the nineteenth century, then something is seriously wrong with my sense of humor.

But clearly Queenan does not see it this way. While outlining the sadistic nature of the summer reading list compilers, he imagines them saying: "'There is no torment too beastly for us to contemplate... If you even once complain about how boring and irrelevant 'The Return of the Native' is, next summer we'll make you read 'Daniel Deronda.'"

Well, we have Daniel Deronda ($9.95), too. Which I happened to like, though granted Eliot has the habit of stretching a narrative a good two hundred pages or so beyond what's decent and interesting. (See also Adam Bede, an otherwise excellent novel). Still, you'll never meet a meaner snake in literature than the one Gwendolyn Harleth finds herself married to in Daniel Deronda. The narrative tension from this alone will keep you flipping pages.

At some point in the past couple of years, someone gave the Penguins a makeover. These aren't the yellow-bordered English Lit 245 texts of yore. Now the classic black background has been snazzed up with fine art and a white-tie accent. The new look suits.

All the books I mentioned (and many more, including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and W. Somerset Maugham's The Moon & Sixpence, which I recommended in the past) are in stock and on sale at Olsson's. So stop by and pick up some Penguins. Because not only do you look smarter with a book... you look downright brilliant with a Penguin Classic.

Until next time, do some reading!
Elizabeth Frengel

I was shopping Olsson's remainder table recently (not surprisingly, a weakness of mine) and came across a sweet little gem of a novel: Gazelle, by Rikki Ducornet.

While you may not guess from the title, the dust jacket certainly conveys the themes of sensuality and nostalgia found in this novel, set in Egypt in the 1950s. At core, Gazelle is the story of a father and daughter who both, for their own reasons, find it impossible to shake the spell of ancient history.

The novel is told primarily from the point of view of 13-year-old Elizabeth, coming of age in a country far removed from the American south where she was born. Her sexual awakening has the bad luck to coincide with the departure of her mother -- an Icelandic beauty with insatiable appetites that blossom intractably in Cairo -- from their staid home life and marriage to a man no more exotic than a mat on which she might wipe her shoes.

Obviously Elizabeth's mother's coolness -- both in action and appearance -- provides sharp relief to Elizabeth's father, a man on the wane, who wears a fez and thinks about little else but ancient warfare (he goes to Egypt on a professorial Fulbright) and the background of the searing desert.

As she's not getting proper attention from either of her parents, the child-Elizabeth becomes entranced by Ramses Ragab, who seems to be the only friend her father has. Ramses comes by their flat every morning to play chess or games of war with tiny painted soldiers, but it is his occupation as a master perfumer and his reading of The Garden of Semblance and Lies that turns Lizzie's head. What's more, Ramses possesses the grace of a Gazelle, a quality that will forever haunt and elude her.

The point of view vacillates between Elizabeth as a child and 13 years later, Elizabeth again in Cairo, now working as an anatomist of mummies and wondering why love occasionally visits, but never stays long.

I find these flash-forwards -- the adult Elizabeth and the overwrought conversations she has with her lovers -- much less convincing and I rather wish Ducornet had kept the point of view static.

But it's a small quibble, as the bulk of the action takes place the summer Elizabeth is 13. What's so entrancing about this novel is its sensuousness -- embodied by the character of Ramses and his perfumery and played out in just about every detail of Cairo: from the steam of the public baths and the attar of rose to a luncheon of pigeons stuffed with barley and served on a bed of spiced lentils and the one-eyed magician summoned from the far reaches of the desert and charged with the task of bringing back Elizabeth's mother.

A charming summer read at just 189 pages and $5.98.

Enjoy,
Elizabeth Frengel