As a book lover and someone who hasn't read any classics since leaving university, I was certainly intrigued when Penguin released their range of Little Black Classics. The collecntion was launched to celebrate the 80th birthday of Penguin books and contains 80 titles (one for each year in the life of Penguin Books) priced at 80p each (who can argue with prices that great). The books feature a range of short stories, poetry and drama drawn from Penguin's wider classics list, so there certainly is something for everyone.
There are many things I love about this collection the first of which being the size, these books are the perfect size to carry with you day to day so you're never without something to read, as someone who has always followed Rory Gilmore's 'I never go anywhere without a book' these fit in my handbag without having to size up. Secondly is the price, I know I've said it already but80p for a physical book that I can hold in my hand and put in my handbag is an absolute bargain and part of the reason I ended up with so many. Thirdly is the design, I just love it, its simple and elegant and grabs the interest of the reader as it reveals only a one sentence description of the book. In addition to this the first page of the book contains a quote from inside to spark your curiosity further.
Since they are only 80p each I decided to buy more than a few, at first I bought only 4, but after realising how many more I wanted and that I had accumulated enough points on my Waterstones card to treat myself to more for free I ended up with a grand total of after a second trip. With such a wide range of titles, genres and authors from around the world I was literally like a kid in a candy shop attempting to make my decisions. So here's my selection and little insight into my choices:
No.05 Aphorisms on Love and Hate - Friedrich Nietzsche. Admittedly I was grabbed by the title of this one but I look forward to reading to
No.15 Femme Fatale – Guy de Mau Passant. A book which has often come up during my studies but I've never read.
No.33 The Beautiful Cassandra – Jane Austen. Like many book lovers I am a big fan of Austen, so when I saw this book by her which I hadn't heard of I knew I definitely had to have it in my collection.
No.42 The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gillman. I'm pretty sure I read this during my Victorian module at uni (or it was at least referenced a lot in criticism) but I look forward to reading it as opposed to studying it.
No.47 The Great Fire of London - Samuel Pepys. My love for history attracted me to this one.
No.53 The Goblin Market – Christina Rosetti. I remember in an A-Level English class we were given an extract from this poem to compare with the Wife of Bath and I remember despite reading only a small section my fascination was peaked and I loved it. However for whatever reason I have never searched for the rest of the poem, so when I saw this was part of the collection I finally took a rather late chance to read on.
(As a side note The Wife of Bath is also one of the 80 books and as one of my favourite Canterbury Tales that I can still recite many quotes from I would recommend it, don't be deterred by the Middle English as the Wife is truly hilarious and outrageous)
No.55 Antigone - Sophocles. Because I had to buy at least one drama book from the collection and this seemed like a good choice.
No.63 The Night is Darkening Round Me - Emily Bronte. I fell in love with Wuthering Heights when I first read it but I haven't ever read any of Emily Bronte's poetry so I look forward to reading this collection, especially since it's been a while since I last read some poetry.
No.67 It was snowing butterflies - Charles Darwin. I actually went to Charles Darwin School, but despite this I know relatively little about him and his work so here's a chance to change that (better late then never)
No. 73 The Fall of Icarus - Ovid. A story I'm familiar with, but don't think I've ever actually read, so I'm looking forward to it.
Of course I would love to own all 80, but seeing as I'm running out of shelf space I had to be selective in my choices. The fulllist with descriptions can be found online at www.littleblackclassics.com where you can spin the Penguin explore the collection.
Let me know which you would get, or if you've already bought some in the comments
- Cloee xoxo
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