Popular Titles You'd Buy

Amidst all the various kinds of handwringing that some of us (I include myself here) have about what Folio publishes, I thought it might be interesting to see what titles people would buy quickly that are not obscure, but rather, quite popular.

I will confess that my preferences don't tend to run strongly in this direction, but there are at least a few that I would buy up more or less immediately if there was a Folio edition:

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Absolutely anything by James Baldwin
A collection of David Sedaris

Those are the ones I can think of that I think would probably sell rather well (I bet any Sedaris, especially, would do well) and would still fit within my taste.

I wonder what suggestions others might have.

Three bestsellers I'd happily snap up from FS:

Watership Down by Richard Adams
Weaveworld by Clive Barker
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

Bonus title: The Amityville Horror, which is a pretty fun read but definitely "airport fiction" in terms of literary merit. And I almost suggested Erica Jong's Fear Of Flying, but when I finally got around to reading it I couldn't get through it. I don't think I'm the target audience there.

Non-fiction:
The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
The Demon Haunted World - Carl Sagan
Helter Skelter - Vincent Bugliosi
Mythos - Stephen Fry

Fiction:
Einstein's Dreams - Alan Lightman
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Salem's Lot - Steven King
Rosemary's Baby - Ira Levin

>3 NoBueno: Helter Skelter - Vincent Bugliosi

Same. I've read this one an embarrassing number of times.

Josephus - The Antiquities / The Wars of the Jews
Ulysses Grant - Personal Memoirs
R.W. Emerson - Essays
Mandeville - The Fable of the Bees
Edith Forbes - Paul Revere and the World He Lived in
Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales (Olde English)
Twain - Pudd'nhead Wilson
Doestevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
Louis Sachar - Holes

Alone in Berlin, if it qualifies as popular.

Likewise, Das Boot.

Anything by Murakami.

A nice edition of something by Chabon, especially Wonder Boys.

The Pillars of the Earth.

The Shipping News

Some more J G Ballard, such as High Rise, Crash, or Concrete Island

Some dirty pleasures:
Where Eagles Dare
Battle Royale
American Psycho

Underworld - Don Delillo
The Guns of Navarone - Alistair McLean

John O'Hara novels. Box set of 4.

Lonesome Dove
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Flashman
Shogun

How Green Was My Valley would likely lure me out of Folio-buying retirement provided they didn't do a Rob Roy on it.

Tai Pan by James Clavell

When Eight Bells Toll by Alistair McLean

I'd second Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and Where Eagles Dare.

>6 ubiquitousuk: "Some more J G Ballard, such as High Rise, Crash, or Concrete Island"

That's a dream three volume set.

And I'd like to see what they would do with the illustrations on American Psycho. It would be hilarious if they did a perverse take on a Patrick Nagel style.

The rest of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series. (Folio stopped with three.) For that matter, anything written by Bernard Cornwell.

Glen Cook's Black Company.

>6 ubiquitousuk: >11 NoBueno: Just chiming in to say that I can get behind more Ballard as well. It's a shame no one has tackled his "four elements" end-of-the-world tetralogy as a set, it's almost always just The Drowned World that gets reprinted.

Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks

I'd actually prefer the Lords of the North series by Cornwell.

And Glen Cook would be great, my preferred series being Garrett P. I. , though I have my doubts anyone will tackle that since it's humorous as opposed to serious. Though that's a bit strange considering how well funny fantasy can do, just not so much with nice editions, it seems.

I bought the Highsmith Ripley set last year and really love the design and format.

It will never happen, but to have the FS complete the quintet (??) would be very gratifying.

Does anyone know why they didn't publish "Boy Who Followed Ripley" or "Ripley Underwater"?

Girl with a Pearl Earring
Memoirs of a Geisha
Year of Wonders
Out of Africa
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Stardust
The Graveyard Book
The English Patient
The Martian

>15 SF-72:

I’d agree with Lords of the North rather than the awful Sharpe novels!

>17 Lady19thC: nice list

>17 Lady19thC:

FS did Out of Africa in 1980, reprinted in 1986. Good copies usually available quite cheaply.

>17 Lady19thC:

I'd definitely second these three:

Stardust
The Graveyard Book
The English Patient

Though I must say that the edition of Graveyard Book by Subterranean Press is really nice, but very expensive on the secondary market.

I always say Shogun. So, Shogun.
I saw Jonathan Livingstone Seagull mentioned and it has been a long time since I read it. I was given it by a family member and in turn passed it on. I would buy an FS copy.
A book by Michael Lewis, either the Big Short or Money ball.
Perhaps one by Michael Connelly, the Bosch series (at least the Black Echo) would be nice. I would be fascinated by what was chosen as the accompanying art.

I would probably buy a nice folio edition of Hyperion.

>23 David_Mauduit: Hyperion seconded.

I'd also buy Jonathan Strange, Watership Down (the absence of a Folio edition of this one is baffling) and I'd also like Alex Garland's The Beach to make a pair with my Lord of the Flies.

Here are a few suggestions that might be a little out of the norm for the Folio Society - but might work as they complement existing publications:

- The Circle of the World (Heimskringla) by Snorre Sturlason - which might go along nicely with the recent Poetic Edda and The Wanderer LEs.
- Farthest North by Fridtjof Nansen - which might complement the recent Shackleton FS publications - as it describes the voyages of the Fram and Nansen's attempts to reach the North Pole 1893-96 (he got close).
- Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny, which won the 1968 Hugo Prize. It's debatable whether this would be classified as fantasy or SF - and is another of those novels that proved difficult to translate to film.
- The well-known YA/adult Pern novels of Anne McCaffrey, especially the original trilogy and the Harper Hall trilogy.

>25 holymoorside: I believe Centipede Press got the rights for Lord of Light and is planning an edition.

>26 abysswalker: Many thanks for the 'heads-up' - I will have to keep an eye on the Centipede Press website!

>25 holymoorside: Grim Oak Press is doing the Pern novels (at least, they’ve done Dragonflight so far)

I'd like to see Shardik by Richard Adams as well as Watership Down. An under-rated title but lots of room for the type of book illustration that FS looks for.
Definitely Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
What about the mysteries by Michael Innes or those by Winifred Peck?
Frederica by Georgette Heyer

And if I may complain a little bit, they've never completely finished the full run of Sayers' Wimsey novels. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club and Clouds of Witness are still missing. Seems odd to leave those two out. (I have all the others in FS editions.)

I think it would be appropriate as well for FS to do a really good book on the history of libraries and/or of the book as physical object. Mark Purcell has done some nice work on The Country House Library.

>25 holymoorside:

Heimskringla would be an auto-buy for me, and yes, it would definitely fit to those other FS editions.

Infinite Jest LE; Season of Migration to the North

I know that Susana Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is a popular request, but I'd be far more likely to buy Piranesi.

How to Win Friends and Influence People--but only as a deluxe LE with full Nigerian goat leather.

>32 coynedj: I would buy either!

>34 RRCBS:

I'd also buy both Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and Piranesi

>32 coynedj: Same, Piranesi would be an instant buy for me as well.

Another vote here for Jonathan Strange...

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
The Name of the Rose and/or Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

(Perception of popularity - YMMV)

"A Town Like Alice" by Nevil Shute

"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

(don't shoot me for this one .... ) Although it became a formula that she has repeated over and over, Jodi Picoult's "My Sister's Keeper" really blew me away. It was the first book of hers I read and I think the first to really hit the magic formula that she has turned into a mega career.

"The Glass Hotel" by Emily St. John Mandel -- oh, the visuals possible there!

"The Library at Mount Char" by Scott Hawkins

"Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein

"The Hunger Games" trilogy by Suzanne Collins

"The Magicians" trilogy by Lev Grossman

"The Parable of the Sower" and "The Parable of the Talents" by Octavia Butler

"The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton. It would be a slim volume, but powerful.

"The Sparrow" and "Children of God" by Mary Doria Russell

"The Carpet Makers" by Andreas Eschbach -- another one for great visuals

"Where'd You Go, Bernadette?" by Maria Semple

"Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore" by Robin Sloan

"The Land of Laughs" by Jonathan Carroll

>38 amysisson: "The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton

You might be interested in the Suntup edition of this. Signed, too.

https://suntup.press/the-outsiders/

Shute and Butler are good suggestions, both would fit fine into the FS line. Wouldn't mind a good edition of On the Beach as well.

>37 DaveGLeeds: Your Eco books have already been done. Name of the Rose is an excellent production.

>36 Shadekeep: Just imagine the illustration possibilities!

>41 coynedj: A very good point!

>39 Shadekeep:

Well, I guess I didn't really need that $$$ I just spent! ;-) Thanks for the heads up!

>43 amysisson: Happy to enable. 😊

>36 Shadekeep:
I loved Piranesi! Instant buy!

>38 amysisson: Library at Mount Char has just been made by Midworld Press, a new publisher. Sadly, they went OOS about a month ago.