I am currently reading Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road for the first time before going to see Sam Mendes's film of this classic novel. There is already a tie-in paperback from Vintage, but I'm reading an elegant Everyman edition at the bargain price of £12.99, which also contains The Easter Parade and a collection of Yates's stories, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness. A real treat, especially as it has a lively introduction by novelist Richard Price, who was taught by "Dick" Yates and remembers him as a lovable old curmudgeon.
Simultaneously, the Everyman people are reporting a 30% rise in their annual sales, which they claim to be a vindication of old-style book publishing. Well, they would, wouldn't they? From the outside, their success looks rather more like that old-fashioned combination of good taste, commercial opportunism and a large dollop of luck.
