I like the idea of a book subscription or club, but not the crappy bestsellers that I will never motivate myself to read. It’s OK, I know it’s me, not them but still . . . . this is the kind of thing I have wistfully imagined.
The complete prose works of Herman Melville in three volumes, the exhilarating range of Mark Twain’s genius in six volumes, Hawthorne’s haunting novels and tales, Emerson’s essays, Frederick Douglass’s own story of his escape from slavery: these and many other works from the American Renaissance and beyond are represented in this extraordinary collection. From Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women trilogy, from Thoreau’s Walden to Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady, all of the great works that form the foundation of America’s literary heritage are included in this complete collection of deluxe authoritative editions from The Library of America. The Library of America publishes America’s best and most significant writing in durable and authoritative editions. Bring the entire series home with the Library of America Collection, available only on Amazon.com, or build your own collection. For a limited time, for every four Library of America books you order, we’ll give you the lowest priced of the four free at checkout. (See details for our 4-for-3 promotion.) [From The Library of America Collections: The 19th Century American Classics]
Like newspapers, as I remember them, it’s good to have a balanced diet of information.
The question before me now is how much of this have I already read and how much of it do I care to read, based on what I already know? is there time enough in life to read more Henry James? I have my doubts. And the few bits and pieces of Twain I don’t already have don’t justify the price of one or more volumes.