The republication of John Williams’ 1965 novel, Stoner, has seen the novel soar into the mainstream. It’s been touted as ‘the greatest novel you’ve never read’, and scooped the 2013 Waterstones book prize. This is a far cry from the book’s original print run – it was pulled barely a year after it was first published. Between 2002 and 2012 it sold barely 5,000 copies. Last summer, however, its sales hit 150,000. This is Lazarus literature; a book rising from the ashes like a dusty phoenix.