I am so happy I have stumbled across your channel Kathi! This was so informative, and so soothing. This might sound as an odd remark, but thank you so much for talking like a normal person, I'm so sick of booktubers always yelling and overexagerating their reactions and opinions, and you are a breath of fresh air!
Exactly. Other tubers are always "I WAS SO EXCITED" and then I buy the book, read it and am nowhere as excited as they were. Or perhaps I misunderstood and they were rather egg-cited? Can't tell...
Stumbling upon your channel today is one of the best serendipitous discoveries I've had in a while. This video was very informative and I loved it a lot. Watching it made me really happy! So thank you for that :)
Thanks Kathi! I am collecting some of my favourite Austen books in hardcover, and your advice has been very helpful! Those Chiltern editions look amazing. I’d also never heard of Flame Tree, but will definitely check them out. Thanks again!
I like Wordsworth paperback books because for the reasons you listed AND because they have great extras in the book: footnotes, biographies, time line etc. they are a great workhorse to study from and to annotate.
Hi Kathie. This classic podcast just popped up on my feed. I love the Chiltern Classic series. I saw them in QBD and fell in love with the covers. They’re so pretty. I agree with you about the garish cover on the Louisa May Alcott book you showed. I was given the Jane Austin one for a birthday gift and have given it to my daughter- it’s just too bright with its blue and gold. She likes it very much. Look forward to seeing you soon 💕
Hi netty. I'm still so in love with the Chilterns. I actually do have the Jane Austen from Barnes and Noble. Perhaps if I find one I like better I'll gift mine. Thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you for this tour of editions! As I near retirement, I have a few thousand dollars to spend replacing my bookshelves of nonfiction special interest books with classics and other fiction works. I bought one book each from several publishers to see which really inspired me. I have to admit, I’ve really fallen for the Folio Society (FS) books. I’ve also just ordered my fifth and sixth Easton Press (EP) editions. I can’t see having a library of Easton Press books, simply because they all look the same on the shelf. I know that’s the point for some people, but for me, I like a little of the personality of each book to show on the spine. There are two editions that you didn’t mention that I think you may like: the Everyman’s classics (EC) and Library of America (LoA). For my absolute favorites, I’ll spring for the FS or EP edition, but for the many others that I want to read eventually, EC is my go to for single volumes and LoA for complete collections of particular authors. You may or may not like the aesthetics of the dust jackets (particularly LoA); however, you can take the jackets off, if you want, and have very elegant, single tone clothbound covers that I think you might like the look of. The EC color code the cloth covers based on when they were written, which is also a nice touch. Another edition I’ll mention, though many of these are too colorful for your taste, I’m afraid, are the Wordcloud Classics (WC). They are flexible cloth covers and have a moderate amount of classic titles. They are very reasonably priced and look like they’ll hold up to repeated readings. Thanks again, for your video!
You are most welcome. It's a great idea to buy from several publishers to discover which you like best. I would take a shelf full of Easton Press myself. 😂 Since the video I have come across more of Everyman's Library editions but they are not to my taste for the most part. I suspect the LoA may not be easy to find in Australia. I have not heard of Wordcloud Classics so thank you for that.
Hello Kathi! I stumbled across your stream, and was so pleased by its content! I buy books by topic, mostly, and only recently have noticed and arranged a few of them by topic and publisher. But my collection is very small, so it was mostly for fun; wishing I was 40 years old, not 68. Thank you for the unconscious suggestion to have a book-buying budget, which I never had. I just finished a rather feverish month purchasing books through the American company ThriftBooks. Their selection is very large, prices and choices of quality are good, but the shipping costs to Canada (I live in Ontario, not too far from Ottawa), are very high. Most of the time the whole purchase still comes in cheaper than the big store prices in the city, called Indigo, formerly Chapters. And I don't mind the Thriftbooks being used, thus saved by me from being recycled or put in the trash. Again, thank you for a very pleasant episode, your experiences, recommendations and sense of humour.
Hello and welcome! Sometimes I wish I lived in the States just for the books I could get with cheap postage. It is very easy to get carried away buying books. I’m guilty of that but buying second hand helps reduce the cost. Thank you so much for sharing your experience.
Hello Madame! I'm discovering your channel with this video and I really love hearing you talking about books (+ as non native english speaker you're easily understandable which makes it even better!)
Good video. Some new publishers to me. I'm also in Australia. There are also the everyman's Classics range and Collins World's Classics. Both very good quality.
Great video! I have 3 books (Dorian Gray, Moby Dick and Phantom of the Opera) in chartwell classics and though i agree that they stick out, i personally think that placing them all together on a separate shelf or placing them horizontal with decor on the sides seems to work. The biggest selling point for me was their size (😅) and flexibility.
The Timeless classics are some of my favourites. I like some of the Everyman's library editions, but not as much as other editions. Thank you so much for sharing.
First I want to say I loved loved this video. I’ve heard you few times talk about how you buy the same books if you like a new addition book cover and I wondered why. It was nice to see your opinions in this. Second, the white line not aligning it must be the most frustrating thing in the world. 😂
Great video! The Penguin Clothbounds are frustrating, I have quite a few and some I don’t mind looking worn but some look pretty bad once quite worn out in my opinion, 1984 being one of them, my Iliad just looks a mess when it was so beautiful to begin with. Some have an indentation that stop them from smudging like Dracula which looks brand new and has been well read, despite my garlic hand sweat (maybe there’s a supernatural element at work!). In general though I love the aesthetic and Penguins additional notes and drawings can be extremely useful. I’ve started getting Everyman’s editions now, do you have them in Australia? The binding is sewn which should hopefully make them last a lifetime and I would the price is very reasonable in the UK for the quality.
It is such a shame about the Penguin Clothbounds because they're quite beautiful. Interesting that not all of them smudge. I don't like the look of Everyman's editions as much myself though they are reasonably priced.
thank you for shaing your experience, beautiful video i have a few of these, especially from knickerbocker, barnes and noble, and Canterbury classics, you should check them too
Great video! you should give the Oxford classics a try. They are paperback and along with Pengiuns they are some of my favorites. They are white instead of black and are very clean with covers that usually have nice illustrations.
Hello Kathi, very lovely and informative video! You may like the Everyman’s Library hardcover editions. I have 2 and they seem to be very good quality and look beautiful with and without their dust jackets! Hopefully they are available in Australia :)
This is the first of your videos I watch (Hi, nice to meet you!) and I was so pleased to see some loved showed by the Wordsworth Classics, the paperbacks I mean. They usually get lots of negative comments because of their covers but I quite like them and I even prefer them over Penguin Black Spines when I can find them.
I just this morning discovered your channel and I like very much what I see. I enjoyed this video and certainly learned from it. I have started building a classics library and which editions to buy has become an issue. I rather like the Barnes & Nobel Classic Collectable editions. The Chartwell Classics are really excellent and inexpensive. As for paperbacks, I am certainly going to check out the Wordsworth paperback Classics. I hope the text doesn't run close into the spine - this is one of my big dislikes in many paperback.
I'm glad you found the video useful and I agree about text running too close to the spine as I refuse to break the spines on paperbacks. Enjoy building your collection. 🙂
Wonderful video! I’m currently collecting a few Easton Press and Folio Society books. I’d love to try a Knickerbocker book! Do you know where in the USA one could find them? A website seemed elusive upon searching. You have a new subscriber. 😊
Thank you very much. 😊 Ah I would love to own a few Easton or Folio books, maybe one day. I too could not find Knickerbocker's website, but I have seen them on Amazon so they must be available in the States. Happy hunting!
It's the shipping that's prohibitive for those of us outside of the States, and depending on how our dollar is doing they can be too expensive. I'm glad you found some though. 😊
As someone who collects manga the only thing I can say about the spines not matching up is welcome to the pain game. I’ve actually had to go through manga volumes and double check which ones looked less like a disaster.
These Barnes and Nobles Leatherbound Classics are superb, but you have to be an arm wrestling champion to be able to read them for any length of time. The solution is to photograph every page with an iPhone and give the pages a yellowish tone . Then I transfer them to my iPad and I read curled up in bed. The advantage with reading with an IPad is that you can highlight in different colours and if you want to revisit a paragraph of any book say at three in the morning you can get there in thirty seconds.
I agree they are heavy but it seems far too much work to photograph every single page. An ebook would be much easier and many e-readers let you highlight.
you make some enjoyable videos .. btw, living in the US, I've amassed a collection of Easton books .,. mostly the great classics, here in the used book stores, sometimes you can pick them up for as little as $15 US... the more in demand ones for as much as $40..
I love the Pan Macmillan collection. The color on the spine is a sort of burnished bronze. They are pocket sized. I like how compact and cute they are. I buy my Eastons used. I can't afford new ones. I generally can find them in excellent shape. They are very, very nice.
The Pan Macmillans look really nice, just not for me. Ah if only I could get some Eastons, but perhaps because I'm in Australia even second hand ones are expensive when you include postage,
@@NerdyKathiI had noticed that shipping between OZ and the US is ghastly. I am glad you showed the Flame Tree Classics. They had Washington Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow & Other Tales that Macmillan does not so I ordered one. They are nice little books the same size as the Macmillans. You are right about the font. It is thin and light. Macmillan is thicker and darker. Macmillan bought the Collector's Library from CRW. The books were always sewn binding cloth covered pocket size. They used to have red covers with striped jackets in various colors with clear titles in black on the spines. Made them easy to read on the shelf. The redesign made the cloth covers light blue with a beautiful blind stamped design on the front cover. The jackets are much harder to read on the shelf.
I can't deny pocket sized books are adorable, but I find them difficult to read. I think I have a set of the striped Collector's Library ones which I must have bought over a decade ago. Thank you for sharing that with me.
the penguin clothbounds break my heart. such beautiful books but the subpar print on the covers are just not it. thankfully penguin sells paperback counterparts with the same gorgeous covers. do you own any? they're the penguin english library editions.
Great work. You may be interested in talking about Elizabeth Paradiso Urassa's books. They are very good for university students and may help the loved ones not to drop out of their studies. I appreciate what you are doing. Thank you very much.
I have to agree with you on the timeless classics hardcover books; even though I think the company is called rockpoint publishing here or they could be completely different companies I do not know for here in the U.S. however, the designs of the books look the same. I'm making my way through the,complete tales of H.P. Lovecraft Timeless classics edition, I've also was recently gifted the complete tales of sherlock Holmes in the timeless classics edition and they're both gorgeous! I have a mix of hard and soft cover books and manga on my shelf ; to me as long as the book is physical and the font is not too small, it'll be a book I'll dive into whole heartedly! 😊❤📚
I'm looking forward to going through Lovecraft as well. I'll have to see if the publishers have brought any more out. Thank you for taking the time to comment. 😊
Just wanted to say you look and sound like you could be Cate Blanchett's big sister/mom, I mean that as a compliment. It was a pleasure listening to you and seeing some of the books in your collection!
Oh I haven't seen the children's ones and they look beautiful. Perhaps they aren't available in Australia. What a shame, but thank you for sharing that with me.
I agree about Dymocks. I recently got something through them and they sent the wrong edition. As any other book collector will know, we often carefully choose the books we buy. It is of course about the book's content, but the cover - the art, graphics, font, etc - can influence the feel of the book, and we love books where the cover seems to reflect how we feel about the book. A lot of book collectors specifically collect books by the same author that have the same cover artist/design, or in limited edition series etc. Dymocks essentially said "it's the same" and it's whatever the warehouse has at the time. It's just poor advertising. Don't advertise a product you don't have, and if substituting is an option, contact the customer and ask if they are ok with a substitute. As a disabled/chronically ill person it was going to be too fiddly to hunt around for the original edition I'd actually ordered, order it somewhere else, send the other one back. So I opted for 15% off the book which of course is measly because their book prices are so high. I won't be buying from them again.
My apologies for the late reply but I have been away. Ah Dymocks. I had a very similar experience with them advertising one edition and sending me another. I was so disgusted by their attitude that I will never buy from them again either.
Great video analyzing the different editions. I also have a similar video showing my classic collection while analyzing the editions. What do you think of the Everyman's library editions? I feel those are really good quality for a reasonable price.
Thank you very much Tasha. I'll have to watch your video later. I forgot about Everyman's library editions! I have heard they are good quality as well but don't think they have as many available in Australia.
Penguin classics are now a little expensive considering the hardback smyth sewn editions you can get for not much more, the introductions and notes in them are good though but don’t think they are as sturdy as they used to be.
I agree that the Penguins are a little pricey. I'm not sure which are the smyth sewn hardbacks and I would always prefer hardbacks to paperbacks, though not the Penguin cloth bound ones. Thank you for sharing.
I just picked up paperback Oxford World Classics edition of Agnes Grey and I find it unreadable. Small letters and too much text on a page. The super white coloured paper doesn't help either. Just picked up a vintage hardback copy from a second hand shop which is miles better.
I went on a cruise iwth a friend ( we live in Texas, USA) around New Zealand to Australia and then stayed in Sydney 3 or so nights. we were walking around and found a bookstore and she had ot drag me out!
I'm wondering if the Canterbury leathers are also the Barnes and Nobles ones as I think that's what they come up as when I've seen them in Australia. They are lovely as well. The calla editions are beautiful but I'm not sure if they're all available here. But thank you for sharing that.
Of the Timeless Classics, those are top notch and have become collectibles thus their price in the market is going up quickly. Pity, their selection is very small; otherwise I would buy anything they print. B&N would be the best choice as for value for money and their selection. Nowadays, they print 1-2 books a year. Penguin cloth bound classics are a tragedy and a rip off. Most of the copies I have examined in shops have that smudging defect.
I didn't realise they have become collectibles. They are well worth it in my opinion. B & N have some nice books no doubt but it is sad that Penguin haven't fixed that smudging issue.
@@NerdyKathi Timeless Classics Jules Verne collection used was over $100 last time I checked. Very few copies left on the market of whatever they've printed. Penguin, as I always turn to the Classics section in any book shop that I visit, I always take care to check the smudging issue with the Penguin cloth bound classics. Last couple of shops were Thalia Buchhandlung (Bookstore) in Mariahilfer Straße, Vienna, and the big Foyles at Charing Cross, London. Both are well known stores which keep high standards when dealing with books. I find it hard to believe that Penguin would call back their copies and fix/replace the many faulty ones.
Books not lining up, worst thing for me. Absolute luxury problem, but still. I have all the books of David Mitchell(not the comedian), some of them sadly in paperback, but the majority in the hardcover first editions from the same publisher. Every. single. one. different. different height, different width, so the spine sticks out, some dust covers are velvety-sticky, others are plain paper, then glossy.
Yes it is a luxury problem but still a very annoying one. Ah publishers. I have a 10 book series with 9 a regular hardcover and 1 the book club size. Grrr. so frustrating.
That book that smudged and wore off... I have zero qualms about returning poor quality books. Or books damaged by shipping. (I never buy from Amazon for that reason.) Send that Penguin Clothbound back.
great video Kathi. couldn't agree more about the penguin clothbound classics. i read the Count of Monty Cristo recently in that addition. Its a long and hefty book and when i was done with it i had completely destroyed the design on it. Really disappointing. Wont be buying anymore.
