June 12, 2020, 10:09am
I am all for more silliness in literature, so I was absolutely delighted by the announcement that Hilary Mantel’s forthcoming collection of essays, book reviews, and memoir, which will be published in October by 4th Estate Books and the London Review of Books, has the absolutely legendary title Mantel Pieces.
With a few notable exceptions (Richard Ford’s Let Me Be Frank With You: A Frank Bascombe Book, Christopher Hitchens’ Hitch-22), delightfully groan-worthy puns in books titles are usually the provenance of celebrity memoir (looking at you, sTORI Telling) rather than Books by Serious Writers, and I’m delighted that Mantel is doing her part to change that.
And, with apologies to both Ford and the late Hitchens, Mantel Pieces is the far superior pun.