High-quality reprint series

Hi. First post.

I'm one of those people who loathe low-quality self-destructing mass market paperbacks. You know, I look at my once-read Vintage Books Pynchon pb issues, shiver and quickly look elsewhere.

I increasingly prefer to shell out extra for acid-free and hardcover if such options are available and if I can recognize them in store databases. Just now I'm charting out future purchases and I'm trying to learn about imprints that focus on reprinting 20th (and why not also late 19th) century fiction in high quality editions. The three imprints I know of are Library of America, Modern Library and Everyman's Library. The interesting bits of their selection (at least Whitman and Faulkner on LoA, Mann on EL) would keep me busy enough, but are there others I ought to know?

Tangential bonus question: are there any tricks for distinguishing good quality paperbacks from low grade ones in places like Amazon? Are people here on LT in the habit of tagging their paperbacks with quality info, and if so, what are such tags typically called?

I haven't tagged low quality paperbacks, some titles automatically bring in binding information (e.g. mass paperback). My lowest quality paperback, I put that it was missing pages in the comments section, but still no tags. Maybe, I was embarrassed that we still own it, and should grade up on it.

I don't know how wide-ranging or specialized your reading interests are, but "high-quality reprint series" as you call them are very narrow in their selection. Granted, some may publish more classics than a person might read in a lifetime, but then such things are never about quantity. If you want the ultimate in quality at slightly-over-affordable prices, you should turn to used/sale copies of the Franklin Library, Easton Press or Folio Society. Generally, the latter publish lavish editions of popular, established or classic works, which are beautiful to touch, smell, gaze upon etc. but they are often light on notes or other miscellania that some curious/enthusiastic readers prefer to have, or they may be just too pretty to actually read or take around with you; besides, their selections are even narrower than those of Modern Library or Everyman's Library. If you have slightly esoteric or serious tastes, many university press editions (Columbia, Princeton, Chicago, Yale, Stanford, Northwestern, California, Nebraska, Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard etc.) are a great place to start - both the paperbacks and hardcovers are generally made to high standards, materially and intellectually, and these major university presses also try to appeal to the general public by publishing information-crammed, newly translated or reissued, nicely designed series. The prices are usually competitive, and you might also end up acquiring titles that are the standard reference/edition in English, with complete critical apparatus and reliable translations etc., or titles that are not often found in many libraries and bookstores. Then there are some general publishers/imprints/series who specialize in high-quality paperback reissues/new editions - NYRB Classics, Dalkey Archive, Pushkin Press, Dover, Continuum Publishing, Routledge and so on. The majority of these titles are translations of foreign works either released only in paperback, or practically unavailable or unaffordable in other formats.

Otherwise, just browse a lot in shops and use your own judgement. The coarseness and the thickness of the paper, the feel of the cover, the type of binding used (almost all paperbacks are glued to their spines, and this is not a terrible thing, but real durability lies in stitched bindings, or at least so I've gathered) etc. will all tell you something. You can't judge quality merely from browsing a website; however, if you spend a lot of time with books, you can easily predict the material quality of a certain publisher or series if you recognize their imprints.

An even better investment, rather than buying expensive or rare titles all the time, may be to protect all your books from sunlight, humidity, insects and dust, and to handle them with care on a regular basis - some crumbling paperbacks are worth more than some pristine hardbacks, and may be the only editions of a certain work, so they need to be preserved anyway. Buy good bookshelves with doors, keep your books standing upright, don't squeeze them too tightly onto a shelf, but don't let them slide or curl either, don't pile them up or leave them in a basement, buy custom dust jackets for your paperbacks and mylar covers for your hardbacks, etc.

Please note I don't or can't follow all these recommendations myself - I wish I had the time, space, money etc.

Besides, in the larger scope of things, everything is temporary.

I am a big fan of the NYRB reprint series. Not only are they attractive and high quality, but I have been introduced to many wonderful authors through these editions. Although some are foreign works in English translation, many are 20th century classics that have gone out of print but are wonderful, wonderful books by excellent authors.

Among the books and authors I have discovered/read through this series are Mavis Gallant, Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Troubles and the other works in J.G. Farrell's empire trilogy, The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge, The Fox in the Attic and The Wooden Shepherdess by Richard Hughes, The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy and many more.

I agree on the NYRB, but I'm slightly confused by "Although some are foreign works in English translation, many are 20th century classics" - are foreign works not typically qualified to be classics?

I'm sorry if it seems like I'm harping on semantics to merely get your goat, and this is NOT a personal attack :) - but I'm curious to see if I simply misread you, or whether your viewpoint coincides with that of the majority of Anglo-American readers.

The latter often seem to assume literature in English is somehow more important or has more classics or just more worthwhile books than literature in other languages - witness the preponderance/popularity of things like Modern Library's 100 best, Harold Bloom's Western canon, and various 'Classics of World Literature' lists that can't tell Canetti from Kawabata but feel the inclusion of Thomas Mann or Leo Tolstoy makes their list 'truly international'...

Eistanai

I would imagine that you feel that Yasunari Kawabata and Elias Canetti are the equal of Thomas Mann and Leo Tolstoy. I've actually read books by both Kawabata and Canetti and have not read Mann (except one story) or Tolstoy (although I did see a movie version of War & Peace, but that doesn't count). I also note that Kawabata and Canetti were winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1968 & 1981). I've always thought of Canetti's "Crowds and Power" as a classic.

I did take a browse through your library catalog and it is impressive. I wanted to take a look at works whose original were Portuguese and didn't notice much correspondence in my collection. I've liked Moacyr Scliar and do have the The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and noticed you do have an interesting work by Darcy Ribeiro, The civilizational Process (although you tagged him as an Uruguayan author). That might be something I would want to track down.

Rebecca, I hope I don't come across as too confrontational - I returned to delete my post but I guess it's too late for that. Anyway, let me know if I misunderstood you.

Hi vpfluke - thanks for the note.

I don't think that Canetti or Kawabata or Mann etc. are the equals, inferiors, superiors etc. of themselves or of other authors because literature is not a competition or awards gala; I always make highly subjective distinctions between authors I consider worthwhile and those I don't, but my distinctions are only useful to me, and each of these authors is worthwhile in his or her own way - not because they have their predetermined positions in a grand system. Perhaps I'm not coming across very well - I'm not irritated by lists / canons etc. because I disagree with this or that ranking or choice, but because their whole raison d'etre, and their paradigms are so trite, provincial and so revelatory about very common, very narrow-minded approaches to the arts.

It's true I don't have very many works written in Portugese. I think my own library and reading is rather parochial, partly because I have little confidence in my understanding of the two other languages I can (passably) read in.

By the way, thanks for pointing out the mistake - Darcy Ribeiro is Brazilian, not Uruguayan, and that might have slipped in during a multiple edit. The work you mentioned is non-fiction. I haven't read it yet, but I purchased it because it's related to some of my interests.

Existanai

At my age, I read what I want to read. For instance, I really like Georges Perec's work, Life : a user's manual and Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style, but I haven't really gotten into the other works of these Oulipo authors. Life as a puzzle (Perec) seems to me to be true, and the endless variety of writing about a simple scene on the bus is also very apealing.

As for lists, I look at them to see if there is something that I've missed that I might want to read.

I have bought plenty of books which I haven't read.

I love Perec! His "Life: A User's Manual" is, among other things (many other things!), a good example of a masterpiece that is lauded in its country of origin but not well known to English speakers.

Perec used to love lists, and he enjoyed his day job as an archivist.

Thanks for all your replies. Plenty of leads in there! And I did mean literature from anywhere, including translations to English.

#5, 6, & 8, Existanai, You are right, and I didn't take it as confrontational. Of course what I meant is "20th century English language classics."

It was hasty posting on my part, as I usually try to be more aware of US/English bias. My only excuse is that I am still catching up with a week's worth of LT postings from while I was away on vacation and also have limited time to spend here right now because of a lot of Real Life.

In fact, I read a fair amount of literature from around the world in English translation.

Thanks for acknowledging our replies, darsu!

Rebecca, I looked at your profile and I see that your tastes are very diverse. Meeting large congregations of Conservatives on this site has made me somewhat presumptuous :) so I ought to be more careful.

Bias, of course, is inherent and inevitable. Meaning that I'm always centred on a particular tradition that I consider dominant, and that's neither a good nor a bad thing and I shouldn't need to apologize for it. However, it's also hard for me to realize sometimes that my tradition/culture/language is also the set of my boundaries; I know that there are vast areas of literature (and experience, generally) that I will probably never explore simply from a lack of recognition or interest - but I can't stand the exploitation of such boundaries for conservative agendas.

Existanai, I don't know where you're running into all those conservatives -- I know they're here, but they don't seem to frequent the same groups I do! And your library is very interesting; I'll have to look at it more carefully when I have more time.