Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Build A Complete Library

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 - laid 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!


The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection The Adventures of Augie March (Penguin Classics)/Saul  Bellow Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass: And What Alice Found There (Penguin Classics)/Hugh Haughton The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)/Howard Phillips Lovecraft Capital : A Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics) (Volume 2)/David  Fernbach The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (Penguin Classics)/S. G. C. Middlemore Common Sense (Penguin Classics)/Isaac Kramnick Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America (Penguin Classics)/Isaac Kramnick Gentlemen Prefer Blondes -and- But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes: The Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady/Anita but Gentlemen Marry Brunettes Loos The Good Soldier : A Tale of Passion (Twentieth Century Classics S.)/Ford Madox Ford The Guide : A Novel (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)/R. K. Narayan The Imitation of Christ (Penguin Classics)/Leo  Sherley-Price The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious (Penguin Classics)/Joyce  Crick The Koran (Penguin Classics)/N. J. Dawood The Lives of the Artists Volume 1/George  Bull The Naked Civil Servant (Penguin Classics)/Michael  Holroyd One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (Penguin Classics)/Robert Faggen The Portable Sixties Reader (Penguin Classics)/Ann Charters

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