Classics

We’ve been lucky in recent years that so many publishers have taken the trouble to produce gorgeous looking collections of classics at great prices. Of course there have always been the good old Penguin Black Classics, but a couple of years ago Penguin added a beautiful clothbound selection of both adults and childrens classics that retail for only $19.95 each. The children’s selection is even available in a lovely boxed set of eight titles for $120 – perfect for a very special gift. And recently they’ve added a delightful selection of clothbound Australian classics. They’ve also released Popular Penguins, a broad collection of older and modern classics in small format traditional orange striped paperbacks for only $9.95 each – bargain!

Around about the same time, Vintage released it’s classics collection, with stunning covers and distinctive red spines – and only $12.95 each. Vintage also added a children’s classics selection with equally thoughtful covers for $9.95 each. At the moment, if you buy any two Vintage classics (either adults or kids) you can have a sweet Book Journal to record everything you read. We also still have some cute activity book and pencils to give away with any kids Vintage classic purchase.

Australia’s own Text Publishing was next off the block with their highly visible yellow Text Classics collection – and all by Australian writers, so ably filling gaps left by Penguin and Vintage. They’ve also gone to lengths to include books that had sadly gone out of print, thereby ensuring these fabulous books won’t be forgotten. And they’re adding new titles to the collection all the time. You can rediscover these titles  for only $12.95.

Earlier this year Angus and Robertson released their own collection of Australian classics for $15 each. If you buy two of these great titles, we are giving away a very useful cloth carry bag – we don’t have many left, so be quick!

And finally, something to look forward to – Penguin will be producing a collection of Crime Classics in August this year. They’ll look similar to the Popular Penguin series, but with green stripes instead of orange. And best of all they’ll be only $9.95 each.

So if you’re looking for a failsafe gift, want to fill the gaps in your home library or just want to finally read that book that you never got around to reading, you can’t go past a classic!

Classic Sci-Fi and Fantasy by Gollancz- Happy 50th Birthday!

British publishing house, Gollancz, have been championing science-fiction and fantasy for over 50 years, and have recently had a poll going to choose the public’s top ten favourite releases of all time.  The Top Ten titles chosen have all been beautifully repackaged in fantastic retro hardback covers in the classic yellow Gollancz style.  Very hard to miss!! Titles chosen include the brilliant and ahead-of-its-time Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick, the classic Time Machine by H.G. Wells,  Dune by Frank Herbert, and Hyperion by Dan Simmons (to name but a few!).

The Top Ten include five favourite Sci-Fi titles and five favourite Fantasy titles, and are a ridiculously cheap $20 for a beautiful hardback.

All are currently in stock.  Open up your mind to other worlds now!

Gollancz: 50 Years of Science Fiction and Fantasy

rrp $20

Popular Penguins- You asked for more, and now they’re here!! Plus a FREE BAG if you’re quick!

Tho good people at Penguin Australia have heeded the call and added another twenty-six titles to their very popular Popular Penguins! Cue massive rejoicing! With an impressive range of modern to contemporary classics, there is literally something for everyone in the current crop.  Favourites include Boy by Roald Dahl, I Claudius by Robert Graves, Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

For a limited time, lucky shoppers will also get a FREE BAG with any purchase of two popular penguin titles (from the whole range, not just the new releases)!! The lovely black canvas bag is a sturdy and fashionable addition to your collection, don’t miss out!!

In store now.

Classics – Now With Extra Pretty-ness

As much as we all appreciate the economical brilliance of a Popular Penguin or any classic format, sometimes you want something, well, better. Penguins Clothbound hardback classics fit the bill perfectly. A wonderful gift for a book lover, because with these it doesn’t matter if they’ve already got it. They might even have read it 20 times. These are still beautiful editions of beautiful stories that will add something classy to any bookshelf. Titles such a Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre could never be wrong… All $19.95, stock may vary.

When in doubt, go classic.

Any time you buy a gift such as a book you encounter the enduring problem of what if

they already have it? I am here with a solution to all your problems. Go classic.

Just in stock are beautiful cloth bound editions of some of our favourite titles. Introduce a teenager you know to the enduring wonders of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice or whisk them away to Wonderland with Alice’s Adventures (and Through the Looking Glass, in one volume). Even if they’ve read it, or got it, a hardback edition of a classic is never out of place on ones bookshelf. Also available in this lovely binding is a personal favourite, Jane Eyre, which I’ve obviously read, and loved, and recently been given as a gift. My battered orange penguin edition than I carried around South East Asia with me just doesn’t compare with my new copy! All $19.95, other titles also available.

Puffin Classics

When my 8 year old was searching for something to read beyond her school readers, I thought back (all those years ago!) to what I was reading when I was her age. I remember loving the classics, and, luckily for me, Penguin Books has recently begun re-releasing them in the fantastic Puffin Classics series.

The books look wonderful, and each has an introduction by a contemporary author. The icing on the cake is that they are only $9.95 each, which makes it very easy to gather a great collection!

We began with The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and introduced by Sophie Dahl. It’s a book I loved when I was a kid. It’s about Mary Lennox, a rather spoiled young girl, who is sent to her uncle’s isolated manor to live when she is orphaned. Mary lives a lonely life until she finds the key to secret garden, and begins to blossom herself as she tends the neglected garden and brings it back to life. When she meets her sickly cousin Colin, she takes him to the garden where he begins to flourish as well. It’s a charming story about friendship and the power of positive thinking.

I’m pleased to say that my daughter loved it as much as I did, and she’s since tried A Little Princess, The Wizard of Oz and The Wind in the Willows from the same series, with great success. After all, they’re classics for a reason! I think we might try Five Children and It next -  there are lots in the series so why stop now? And I must say they do look gorgeous lined up on the shelf! $9.95 each. Fiona