The Time Reading Program (TRP) was a book sales club run by Time–Life, the publisher of Time magazine , from 1962 through 1966. Time was known for its magazines, and nonfiction book series' published under the Time-Life imprint, while the TRP books were reprints of an eclectic set of literature, both classic and contemporary, as well as nonfiction works and topics in history. The books were chosen by National Book Award judge Max Gissen, the chief book reviewer for Time from 1947 until the TRP began in 1962.
The books themselves were published by Time Inc. and followed a specific format across their widely varying subject matter. The editions were trade paperbacks, with covers constructed of very stiff plastic-coated paper, for durability. The books were eight inches tall, just less than an inch taller than a standard mass-market or "rack" paperback. Each book had a wraparound cover with a continuous piece of artwork across both covers and the spine, generally a painting by a contemporary artist, commissioned specifically for the TRP edition. The TRP covers attracted a measure of acclaim at the time. According to Time, 19 TRP covers were cited in 1964 for awards from The American Institute of Graphic Arts, Commercial Art Magazine and the Society of Illustrators guild. Typography and other printing credits were given in a colophon on the end pages, in the manner of sophisticated publishing houses like Alfred A. Knopf. The William Addison Dwiggins typeface Caledonia was typically used. The logo for the series was in format of a monogram, "RTP", enclosed in a rounded slightly rectangular box.
While not, strictly speaking, original publications, most of the TRP books had unique introductions written by various scholars specifically for the TRP edition. In a few cases, the texts had also been revised by the authors to create a definitive edition, and did not constitute abridgement.
Subscribers to the TRP typically received four books a month, though some books arrived as multi-volume sets. Included with shipments was a small newsletter describing the books and why they were chosen.
Time revived the program in the early 1980s, with many of the same titles.
(Books listed by year of reprint publication. Original publication date not given. Authors who provided their own introductions are indicated with an "‡")
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems.
Eric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism and support of democratic socialism.
Brave New World is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by the story's protagonist. Huxley followed this book with a reassessment in essay form, Brave New World Revisited (1958), and with his final novel, Island (1962), the utopian counterpart. This novel is often compared as an inversion counterpart to George Orwell's 1984 (1949).
George Woodcock was a Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, a philosopher, an essayist and literary critic. He was also a poet and published several volumes of travel writing. In 1959 he was the founding editor of the journal Canadian Literature which was the first academic journal specifically dedicated to Canadian writing. He is most commonly known outside Canada for his book Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962).
Henry Brooks Adams was an American historian and a member of the Adams political family, descended from two U.S. presidents. As a young Harvard graduate, he served as secretary to his father, Charles Francis Adams, Abraham Lincoln's ambassador to the United Kingdom. The posting influenced the younger man through the experience of wartime diplomacy, and absorption in English culture, especially the works of John Stuart Mill. After the American Civil War, he became a political journalist who entertained America's foremost intellectuals at his homes in Washington and Boston.
Kenneth Lewis Roberts was an American writer of historical novels. He worked first as a journalist, becoming nationally known for his work with the Saturday Evening Post from 1919 to 1928, and then as a popular novelist. Born in Kennebunk, Maine, Roberts specialized in regionalist historical fiction, often writing about his native state and its terrain and also about other upper New England states and scenes. For example, the main characters in Arundel and Rabble in Arms are from Kennebunkport, the main character in Northwest Passage is from Kittery, Maine and has friends in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the main character in Oliver Wiswell is from Milton, Massachusetts.
Victor Gollancz Ltd was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century and continues to publish science fiction and fantasy titles as an imprint of Orion Publishing Group.
Tropic of Cancer is an autobiographical novel by Henry Miller that is best known as "notorious for its candid sexuality", with the resulting social controversy considered responsible for the "free speech that we now take for granted in literature." It was first published in 1934 by the Obelisk Press in Paris, France, but this edition was banned in the United States. Its publication in 1961 in the United States by Grove Press led to obscenity trials that tested American laws on pornography in the early 1960s. In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the book non-obscene. It is regarded as an important work of 20th-century literature.
Great Books of the Western World is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952, by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., to present the great books in 54 volumes.
Nancy Clara Cunard was a British writer, heiress and political activist. She was born into the British upper class, and devoted much of her life to fighting racism and fascism. She became a muse to some of the 20th century's most distinguished writers and artists, including Wyndham Lewis, Aldous Huxley, Tristan Tzara, Ezra Pound and Louis Aragon—who were among her lovers—as well as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Constantin Brâncuși, Langston Hughes, Man Ray and William Carlos Williams. MI5 documents reveal that she was involved with Indian diplomat, orator, and statesman V. K. Krishna Menon.
The Education of Henry Adams is an autobiography that records the struggle of the Bostonian Henry Adams (1838–1918), in his later years, to come to terms with the dawning 20th century, so different from the world of his youth. It is also a sharp critique of 19th-century educational theory and practice. In 1907, Adams began privately circulating copies of a limited edition printed at his own expense. Commercial publication of the book had to await its author's 1918 death, whereupon it won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize. The Modern Library placed it first in a list of the top 100 English-language nonfiction books of the 20th century.
Gateway to the Great Books is a 10-volume collection of classic fiction and nonfiction literature edited by Mortimer Adler and Robert Maynard Hutchins, with Clifton Fadiman credited as associate editor, that was published by Encyclopædia Britannica in 1963.
D. Appleton & Company was an American publishing company founded by Daniel Appleton, who opened a general store which included books. He published his first book in 1831. The company's publications gradually extended over the entire field of literature. It issued the works of contemporary scientists, including those of Herbert Spencer, John Tyndall, Thomas Huxley, Charles Darwin, and others, at reasonable prices. Medical books formed a special department, and books in the Spanish language for the South America market, including the works of Rafael Pombo, were a specialty which the firm made its own. In belles lettres and American history, it had a strong list of names among its authors. On June 2, 1933, D. Appleton & Company merged with The Century Company.
Charles Duff was a Northern Irish writer of books on language learning. He also wrote a popular book on hanging and other means of execution.
Literature of the 20th century refers to world literature produced during the 20th century.
Sinister Street is a 1913–1914 novel by Compton Mackenzie. It is a kind of Bildungsroman, or novel about growing up, and concerns two children, Michael Fane and his sister Stella. Each of them is born out of wedlock, something that was frowned on at the time, but to rich parents.
Jane Loudon, also known as Jane C. Loudon, or Mrs. Loudon in her publications, was an English writer and early pioneer of science fiction. She wrote before the term was coined, and was discussed for a century as a writer of Gothic fiction, fantasy or horror. She also created the first popular gardening manuals, as opposed to specialist horticultural works, reframing the art of gardening as fit for young women. She was married to the well-known horticulturalist John Claudius Loudon, and they wrote some books together, as well as her own very successful series.
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel and cautionary tale by English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, it centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of people and behaviours within society. Orwell, a staunch believer in democratic socialism and member of the anti-Stalinist Left, modelled the Britain under authoritarian socialism in the novel on the Soviet Union in the era of Stalinism and on the very similar practices of both censorship and propaganda in Nazi Germany. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within societies and the ways in which they can be manipulated.
The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century is an 1827 three-volume novel written by Jane Webb. It concerns the Egyptian mummy of Cheops, who is brought back to life in the year 2126. The novel describes a future filled with advanced technology, and was the first English-language story to feature a reanimated mummy.
Ian W. Toll is an American author and military historian who lives in New York City. He wrote The Pacific War Trilogy, a three-volume history of the Pacific War.