Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

Interesting titles! I will need to look into those!

I bought a copy of The Fixer by Bernard Malamud in a used book store during our mini-holiday in Ottawa.

Rosemarie wrote: "I bought a copy of The Fixer by Bernard Malamud in a used book store during our mini-holiday in Ottawa."

Great, great book!!

Wow! Just found a copy of Silas Marner by George Eliot on sale at Audible.com for 99 cents!

Narrated by Andrew Sachs (played Manuel on Fawlty Towers).

https://www.audible.com/pd/Classics/S...

My latest addition was The Pickwick Papers and Bleak House

I enjoyed both of them, Pascale. I hope you do too.

Rosemarie wrote: "I bought a copy of The Fixer by Bernard Malamud in a used book store during our mini-holiday in Ottawa."

Nice we are reading it in our upcoming Monthly Reads!

Pascal wrote: "My latest addition was The Pickwick Papers and Bleak House"

My two very favorite of Dickens's novels. I hope you enjoy each of them as much as I do.


These just arrived for me today:



Journey into the Mind's Eye: Fragments of an Autobiography by Lesley Blanch and the poems of Li Shangyin.

It finally arrived today...


Parallel Stories: A Novel by Péter Nádas

I've already got Letters from Russia going right now, with War and Peace coming up, so this one is going on the back burner. But once I've lightened my reading load, I'll give this one some serious consideration.

Pillsonista wrote: "It finally arrived today...


Parallel Stories: A Novel by Péter Nádas

I've already got Letters from Russia going..."

Oh boy, another Hungarian author, with a more modern classic.

Brian wrote: "Oh boy, another Hungarian author, with a more modern classic. "

And it literally weighs 3 lbs...

Pillsonista wrote: "Brian wrote: "Oh boy, another Hungarian author, with a more modern classic. "

And it literally weighs 3 lbs..."

I figured It was pretty heavy reading.

I stopped at my local Salvation Army thrift store today and scored some good books including a few classics. New copy of To Kill a Mockingbird to replace my old worn out copy I long since got rid of. I found Our Town, which is like to read. Another, older copy of The Princess Bride, but this one has a color foldout map within the pages! My other copy is the 30th anniversary edition. I don’t have an ebook copy of The Three Musketeers like our current Dumas hefty read, so I was happy to find a physical copy today.

Four wonderful finds Samantha!

Do you have several different editions of the same book or do you just change out?

Lesle, the only books I have 2 editions for are now The Princess Bride and The Outsiders. The anniversary editions have more content in them. If it weren’t for the awesome color foldout map in this older edition of The Princess Bride, I would’ve only bought it to give to a friend.

I have often wondered what others do.

I read somewhere to be a true collector you have in possession several editions. (I don't have the space for that!) I must not be.

I usually trade out when I find a nicer condition but still in the older years. I do like the design of the covers of older books, usually to newer prints.

Oh I can see owning different language prints of Classics.

Leslie, I don’t have space for collecting multiple versions of the same book, either. I doubt I ever will. Besides, i rather someone else hopefully enjoy the book I loved, rather than hoard multiple copies of hardly any. With The Last Unicorn, I had an old copy I found on AbeBooks, but then when I found a signed copy (!) anniversary edition on Amazon, I gave the older copy away to a friend who I’d like to read it. She likes fantasy and will eventually. That older edition has smaller typing, too, so I enjoy the anniversary edition more with the regulars sized font. A book would have to be very special with all editions I have in great condition, for me to keep more than one edition.

To those who have the space and money to collect multiple editions of the same book, far be it from me to stop you.

Picked up two new classics today, when we stopped into a thrift store to check out their vinyl collection - Fathers and Sons and Dr. Faustus. I'm pretty interested in different versions of the Faust story and I've been meaning to check out Marlowe for literally a decade, so I'm looking forward to that one especially.

On the $2 shelf at a Half-Priced Books (1/2 is usually too-high of a price) in Chicago, I found good condition used paperbacks of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

Also, I used to keep multiple editions of several books but, as I age, my collection grows and so had to make choices. However, when I have a classic edition, such as my 1908 set of the complete works of George Eliot, I will also buy/keep a paperback version for actual reading. though now I can also use a Kindle edition.

My Mom had purchased these two books for me back in the Summertime for Christmas:

The Broken Road by Richard Paul Evans
The Forgotten Road by Richard Paul Evans

and SANTA brought:

The Noel Stranger also by Richard Paul Evans
Every Breath by Nicholas Sparks

Did Santa 🎅 bring any of our Members books for Christmas??

Oh I had taken Brayden and Landen to Barnes and Noble to select a few books. I have influenced my Grandson Brayden already! He was disappointed that the Amulet series by Kazu Kibuishi was not in Hardcover!

Please share your Santa gifts of reads, they don't have to be Classics. Just love getting books at Christmas time! 🎄

I got a very old edition of Heidi from one of my daughters this year. Apparently, she remembered it being read to her as a bed-time story, when a toddler.

I thing I really wanted for Christmas was The Great American Read: The Book of Books: Explore America's 100 Best-Loved Novels & I received it. :). Then, my mom gave me an amazon gift card, which I used part of to buy The Chronicles of Narnia. I only have ever read and seen the (animated) movie for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe way back in 5th grade, so I am excited to read all 7 books.

You are in for a treat, Samantha. I didn't read the Narnia books until I was 27 and I loved them!

Lesle wrote: "My Mom had purchased these two books for me back in the Summertime for Christmas:

The Broken Road by Richard Paul Evans
The Forgotten Road by [author..."

That's lovely Lesle that you received books your mother picked out last summer. She was thinking of you.

I knew she was getting them for me Kathy, as she always ask me not to purchase them. So was no surprise when I went over to her bookcase and they were in the shipping box with two books that she had bought for herself.

She loved to read, I guess she was the one that got me started.

Catherine wrote: "I got a very old edition of Heidi from one of my daughters this year. Apparently, she remembered it being read to her as a bed-time story, when a toddler."

That was a very special Christmas read from your Daughter! Enjoy!

Thanks for the insight about the Narnia books, Rosemarie. I’m forcing myself to finish the 4 books from the end of 2018 before I start anything new. The book is very tempting just sitting there, though.

Catherine, the best book gifts have sentimental reasons behind the giving, from my view. Your daughter is awesome for putting such thought into the book she gave you.

Catherine wrote: "I got a very old edition of Heidi from one of my daughters this year. Apparently, she remembered it being read to her as a bed-time story, when a toddler."

How sweet

Catherine wrote: "I got a very old edition of Heidi from one of my daughters this year. Apparently, she remembered it being read to her as a bed-time story, when a toddler."

So sweet!
I just had a very old version of "Heidi's Children" by a friend who was going to put it in a neighborhood book exchanges: the first edition was from 1950, and mine is from 1956. And what is more extraordinary is that there are two messages written inside. One from 1956 and the other from 1959. Basically from the owners.
I couldn't let that book go...

Thanks everyone. It was a sweet gesture indeed and I am all chuffed.

I pretty much only read classics. Nice to find this group! I finished Dark Night of the Soul and (finally) David Copperfield on Audible. So now I am reading a collection of HP Lovecrafts work and listening to St Augustine’s Confessions on Audible. I did take a break to listen to Bernice Bobs her Hair by Fitzgerald. It always makes me laugh.

I discovered H.P. Lovecraft about a year or so ago. His works are addictive.

I dug through the book room at Salvation Army yesterday and found That Was Then, This is Now by S.E. Hinton. It looks like it’s had some water damage to some of pages, but it’s definitely good enough for one quick read. I’m so excited to finally read it. I also found A Raisin in the Sun: The Unfilmed Original Screenplay, which says it has scenes cut from the final movie. That was a pretty cool find.

It certainly was, Samantha.

Both finds are amazing Samantha! That's wonderful.

I picked up a free copy of Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson. It is an old edition (1963) and part of the New Riverside Literature Series- RLS R18. I can't even find this particular edition in Goodreads! It was first published in 1885.

Pam wrote: "I picked up a free copy of Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson. It is an old edition (1963) and part of the New Riverside Literature Series- RLS R18. I can't even ..."

Wow Pam! Wonderful and beautiful addition.

John who would of thought you could get books at Habitat, I will have to check ours out!

You found some wonderful deals. I love great illustrated YA novels!

I found, at our Twig Store Chitty Chitty Bang Bang this edition in hardcover for 25 cents. In good condition. They charge a dollar for all hardcovers and all kids books a quarter!

I always end up leaving a donation as I feel guilty for getting such finds for so little!

Alexandre Dumas: The Last Cavalier. Discovered early in 2005(?) in a Paris Library vault, printed 2007.
I've read quite a few of Dumas's works and certainly needed to add this to my collection.

Nice addition to your Dumas collection.

Here's my whole Dumas list:
Publisher Title "Year Published" Pages
President Pub. Ange Pitou - 2 volumes 1853 783
Little, Brown Ascanio - 2 Volumes 1843 617
Fred de Fau Joseph Balsamo-
Memoirs of a Physician -
3 volumes 1846 1,560
Fred de Fau La Dame de Monsoreau-
Chichot the Jester-
2 volumes 1846 810
President Pub. Le Chevalier of
Maison-Rouge 1845 462
Collins Louise de la Valliere 1849 607
President Pub. Marquerite de Valois 1845 575
President Pub. The Chevalier de Harmental 1843 439
Fred de Fau The Companions of Jehu 1857 634
President Pub. The Count of Monte Cristo -
4 volumes 1845 1,595
President Pub. The Countess de Charny -
2 volumes 1853 661
Fred de Fau The First Republic, or,
The Whites and The Blues 1867 739
Fred de Fau The Forty-Five Guardsmen 1848 697
Pegasus Books The Last Cavalier 2007 751
President Pub. The Page of the Duke of Savoy 1854 676
President Pub. The Queen's Necklace 1850 585
Pegasus Books The Red Sphinx 1866 807
President Pub. The Regent's Daughter /
The Black Tulip 1845 572
Barnes and Noble The Three Musketeers 1844 628
Fred de Fau The Two Dianas 1846 836
President Pub. The Vicomte de Bragelonne -
5 volumes 1849 2,468
Leslie-Judge Twenty Years After 1845 366

All the Dumas were printed late 1800s, early 1900s. I doubt if a first edition was available I certainly couldn’t get it.

The dates are 99% original publication dates. The books I have are all English reprints from around the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Other than the Barnes & Noble and the two Pegasus books, the other publishers are all out of business.

John wrote: "If you don't mind ebooks UPenn has a master list of Dumas's work from multiple sources, different translations, etc.

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/......"

Thanx! That is some amazing list. Sort of makes me feel bad considering all the works I don't have yet.

My school librarian keeps giving me free books to read because no one else will, so I suppose my newest addition is Graham Greene's The Comedians. I do not like Greene, but in order to be 'well-rounded' in literature, Graham Greene is unavoidable.

Jordan St. Stier - your school librarian might be trying to use you to up exposure for some of these books. Perhaps there is hope that you will read them and recommend the books to others at your school? 🤔