Penguin 50th Anniversary Mini Classics Series

[Fried Egg]

To celebrate 50 years of Penguin's Modern Classics series, they are about to release a collection of 50 mini classics featuring some of the best authors they have published over the years. And for £3 each they are quite a cheap way of sampling some of the classics if you haven't read them before.

Of course, they go well beyond the scope of SF&F and horror but there are quite a few in the collection that should interest including H.P. Lovecraft, H.G. Wells, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Angela Carter, E.M. Forster, Shirley Jackson, M.R. James, Rudyard Kipling and others.

Sorry if I sound like a Penguin sales rep but I'm quite excited by this collection and I thought others here might be too.

[chopper]

does sound fairly tasty - and looks rather nice too.

[sloweye]

It dose look good, even chanced entering the draw

[Fried Egg]

Waterstones are doing 3 for 2 on all the new mini classics so I picked up:

"In the Penal Colony" by Franz Kafka
"Terra Incognita" by Vladimir Nabokov
"The Machine Stops" bt E.M. Forster

All authors I haven't tried before. A great way of sampling new authors.

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Musil, Akutagawa, Zweig - some great choices there. I hate the bland covers though.

[GOLLUM]

Indeed,...there is an excellent representation of quality authors and stories included here. I'll stick to the Penguin Blacks, having the much more stylishly attractive covers and because I have the majority of the authors covered here. Still, there'll be 2 or 3 that I'll be purchasing.

I can certainly see why Fried Egg would be excited by this. Top quality at rock bottom prices. A definite bargain.

This reminds me of the excellent new offering by Vintage press. Again pretty goddamn awful covers but an excellent range at about £5 a book.

EDIT: The only authors I'm not familiar or don't have any representative work are by Hans Fallada and Eudora Waltry. I'll have to check them out.

[Connavar]

The covers dont matter to me the nice looking paperback with so many classics of SFF,non-genre i like to read is too good to miss.

Im writing a list of priority on which authors to order first when i have £3x10 free

I dont have a big classic collection like Gollum and im a student so the cheap price is better than the regular black penguin books.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Connavar

I dont have a big classic collection like Gollum and im a student so the cheap price is better than the regular black penguin books.

Who said anything about a big collection?.... A fair enough point though. I'm the same with more expensive items. I just want the contents of the book rather than pay a lot of money for a 1st edn. I'm generally not even after.....

You should also check out Vintage's latest releases. Very affordable and some really excellent titles!

[Connavar]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Who said anything about a big collection?.... A fair enough point though. I'm the same with more expensive items. I just want the contents of the book rather than pay a lot of money for a 1st edn. I'm generally not even after.....

You should also check out Vintage's latest releases. Very affordable and some really excellent titles!

I mean you have read more Borges,Calvino etc

People i dream about reading but lack of library books stops me. If it was last year when i was working and not in literary classes i would have bought the penguin classic books of regular prices. Now i have to buy annoying course books i will use like once.

The Expelled - Samuel Beckett
The Widow Ching-Pirate - Jorge Luis Borges
The Queen's Necklace -Italo Calvino
Hell Screen - Ryunosuke Akutagawa
The Machine Stops - E. M. Forster
'They'- Rudyard Kipling
Alberic's Scrap-Book - M. R. James
The Strange Crime of John Boulnois - G. K. Chesterton
In the Penal Colony - Franz Kafka
Through the Wall - Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Those authors,works are my first choices i excluded Carter,Wells,Camus,Jackson for example since i have already tried them. Since im a SFF,horror fan Wells,Shirley Jackson is hardly new reads for me

[Fried Egg]

Connavar, I'm not sure if the M.R. James collection is worth getting since there's also the Wordsworth collection for the same price but contains many more of his stories than this one. That's true for the Kipling one too. I know that you're not overly keen on the Wordsworth editions but...the choice would seem to be a "no brainer".

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Connavar

The Expelled - Samuel Beckett
The Widow Ching-Pirate - Jorge Luis Borges
The Queen's Necklace -Italo Calvino
Hell Screen - Ryunosuke Akutagawa
The Machine Stops - E. M. Forster
'They'- Rudyard Kipling
Alberic's Scrap-Book - M. R. James
The Strange Crime of John Boulnois - G. K. Chesterton
In the Penal Colony - Franz Kafka

Under my speical guidance you appear to be developing fine literary tastes.... Jokes aside, that is an outstanding list of authors there Conn!

[Connavar]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Under my speical guidance you appear to be developing fine literary tastes.... Jokes aside, that is an outstanding list of authors there Conn!

Well you take University literary classes and read 2500 years of lit history you are treated with so many classics at once like when Neo is downloading martial arts in Matrix
I was even before that growing nicely into classic fanboy but now im much more hungry.

You think every week i must read more Beckett,Camus,Kafka,Baudiliare,William Blake,Whitman,Rabelais,Dickenson,Södergran,Ibsen,S trindberg etc

Not to mentian all the ancient greeks...

I have to focus first on the ones that interest me most. Waiting for Godot for example was so great, surreal like a weird literary fantasy.

If the libraries wasnt so much lame bestseller crap crime books and more respect for the classics i would have read those authors long time ago on my own

[Connavar]

Originally Posted by Fried Egg

Connavar, I'm not sure if the M.R. James collection is worth getting since there's also the Wordsworth collection for the same price but contains many more of his stories than this one. That's true for the Kipling one too. I know that you're not overly keen on the Wordsworth editions but...the choice would seem to be a "no brainer".

Well wordsworth in those cases since i cant complain to much of quality when its about the cheap price.

I was wary of the fact these mini books had few short stories in them. But with authors im more sure on i will take mini series chance before wordsworth. Im looking for tryout anyway and not a complete collection. £3 is cheaper in our money these days.

[Fried Egg]

Well, I've read "Terra Incognita" by Vladimir Nabokov and quite enjoyed it.

The only thing lacking from the book would be a "...if you liked the stories here then perhaps you would like the following..."