A few weeks ago I was searching for Homer's The Odyssey for a Christmas gift for the man of the house. I was pretty shocked to stumble across The Complete Penguin Classics Collection available for $US7989.50. However, not nearly as shocked as I was to discover that people have bought it and left reviews!
This is the full set of 1082 Penguin Classics in current publication. According to Wikipedia, the collection weights 750 pounds (340 kg) and takes about 77 linear feet (23.5 m) of shelf space, and laid end-to-end the books would reach about 630 feet (192 m). The full listing is available here, if you are interested.
We love books and can't cram enough bookshelves into our house to fit them all. In our home in Australia, we had to instigate a firm "One comes in, then one must go out' policy and constantly worry about what would happen if there were to be a house fire.
Despite enjoying a good read, I realise there is very little chance that we'd ever be happy to drop nearly $US8000U on books at a time. So I decided I would try and collect as many of the books off the list, but to buy them second-hand (Thus fitting into our budget and my wish to 'reduce, reuse and recycle' more this year).
The picture you see is the result of a few hours or searching and list crossing in 2 of my favourite second-hand book haunts - Bookbuyers and Rasputins, both in Mountain View, CA. Most bought for a $1 or 2. All books without a price were met with a shoulder shrug and 'Is $2 too much?' from the seller. Over the Christmas long weekend I think I collected 62 off the list. I'll me putting together a list of the titles I have in the next few weeks. I doubt whether I will get through them all this year, with all the university reading I have to do too, but I'll give it a crack.
Hopefully it will also improve my vocabulary. I'm sick of playing 3 and 4 letter words in Scrabble.
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