Amazon.com is offering a pretty good bundle for any person or institution looking to create a sizeable corpus of fine writing in English. The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection, exclusive at Amazon.com, includes 1082 titles ranging from Homer's Odyssey to Bellow's Herzog, and much, much more. (Complete list by title.)
This is a huge stack—aid end to end they would top 52 miles in length, and weigh 700 pounds, so look for a hefty shipping charge (not covered by Amazon Prime, malheuresement). At the same time, they are discounting the list price by about 40%, and you get a great collection of books for about $7 per book.
Much of my childhood reading, and introduction to fine English writing, was via Penguin books—they are major publishers in India, and I can remember many fond visits to their central bookstore in Bangalore on M.G. Road.
The children's imprints like Puffin provided introductions to great books like the Narnia series, Watership Down, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and more.
Even today the Penguin and Puffin colophons are enough to bring a smile to my lips and a wistful look to my eyes.
If only this gargantuan collection were covered by Amazon Prime!
Article comments
1 - Tan Hoang
Nice find, I'm sure a lot of people would rather own full collections of things, then have to get one-by-one (me being one of them). I'm glad Amazon.com is doing this. They did a complete Criterion Collection DVD Library (sans the out of print titles) a few months back. Sadly, I missed it. I might pick this up. If only I could find room for them.
2 - DrPat
At "Price: $7,989.99" this is an institutional purchase for sure! Those of us without access to public funds can only drool on the candy-shop windows...
3 - Pat Cummings
I have changed this category to "News," Aaman - it's not precisely a "Review," and more objective than fits "Opinion."
4 - francisco68
There used to be a class of people who bought full libraries of leather bound, color coordinated books to look nice in the "library" with little intention of reading them.
I have spent my life in new and used bookstors, library sales, goodwill racks and bargain bins to find good reading at reasonable prices. This way is just too easy.
Does the person with $8000 to plunk down on a pre-selected library have the time and inclination to make a library what it should be -- read?
As an "institutional purchase" on the other hand... There is, for instance, a room (very well decorated) on the cruise ship on which I travel which is labeled "library" but has few books. It would surely benefit by this purchase.
It is also good to hear that their may still be a market for reading. A recent survey of books read per capita by country showed Finland highest with about 50, England with 39 and the US with 32. Mexico came in with 2. Let us hope that the US does not begin to follow suit.
5 - Aaman
So where did the US place?
6 - Tan Hoang
There is still a market for books. I think the recent statistic was that more people bought books than magazines, CDs, and DVDs combined (I think). But that is kind of skewed because more people buy adult DVDs than mainstream commercial DVDs.
Anyway, I think most people intend to read the classic novels like War and Peace and MacBeth. This collection just helps make it easier to get around to reading all of these classics. Not every book will be read, but that's the reader's choice.