Summer Collection 2026 - Speculation Thread

What are the odds of getting the LE based SE for The Odyssey in the Summer Collection?

Pretty sure it's out this year, so 1/3 chance?

>2 A.Godhelm: I want to reread The Odyssey before the Nolan movie comes out, so I'm hoping for a summer collection release. It would be fun to read the folio edition instead of my Penguin Classics edition.
(My expectations for the movie, after seeing the trailer, have been lowered, just fyi.)

Will we get another Iain M Banks book?

>4 arpd71: The previous 2 titles were released in a May so I definitely expect Excession to be out for this summer's collection following that trend. I'll be very surprised if it turns out to be State of the Art though since it was an anthology.

>5 wongie: And yet that didn't put Folio off publishing the 6-book Earthsea series chronologically, with the collection of short stories and other writing 'Tales From Earthsea' as the 5th installment. I hope the Culture series will be treated in the same way.

There's supposed to be a fresh Moby Dick release this year for America's 250th, yeah? Summer release to coincide with 4th of July? I am eagerly awaiting an announcement around that.

>6 Elysium72: Agreed -- hoping for State of the Art myself. While not Banks' strongest work, it does make for a good companion to Use of Weapons since it features two of the same characters. It's also a complete novella and was published as a stand alone volume before it was reissued in conjunction with the short stories.

>8 HonorWulf: Yes. I always have it before "Use of Weapons" in my head, as I think I read the novella on its own. I must admit I am 'clearing up' Dune and Murakami before I start on Banks - but I'm hoping we get the full Culture series. I'd like his mainstream fiction even more - would they ever publish "The Wasp Factory"?

>9 arpd71: Probably because the novella was originally published and takes place before Use of Weapons. It was republished in the expanded short story collection immediately afterwards, henceforth taking its place as the fourth book in the series. In terms of The Wasp Factory, there was a rumor floating around that it was in the works, but haven't heard anything firm about it.

>10 HonorWulf: It would fit the recent pattern if the did a LE of "The Wasp Factory" and then made it standard later...

I'm wondering if their do the same thing with China Mieville, now "Perdido Street Station" is out as a standard edition... I'd really like the rest of the Bas-Lag trilogy.

>11 arpd71: I suspect if they do Wasp Factory, it'll be a standard edition. Same thing with the rest of the Bas-Lag trilogy (which I really hope the do!). I'm also holding out for the rest of the Gibson trilogy.

>12 HonorWulf: Easton Press released Count Zero. Based on that I would suspect that at some point they would release Mona Lisa Overdrive. I would love if FS did Burning Chrome rather than finish the trilogy. I don't think they'd do the whole trilogy anyway. While I read Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, I don't know that FS would think it necessary. I don't know that they would think that they would sell as well as Neuromancer. I don't think they would sell as well as Neuromancer. I would love a trilogy, but realistically, I don't know that finishing the trilogy has been important to many people. The Sprawl Trilogy isn't known for world-building like Tolkien or Banks. It's not that I don't think Gibson didn't do that. He created an alternate world and peopled it. But, in a way the world is where his characters live. Tolkien and Banks explored the worlds they created. Herbert maybe tried to do both? But, ultimately, I don't know how compelling the follow up novels were compared to Tolkien's. I would say that except for Tolkien, Banks and Gibson's novels are self-contained. Herbert, I would argue it's in between. This is just my preliminary opinion. I haven't fully thought everything out.

>12 HonorWulf: All of those would be on my buy list!

Maybe a couple of sequels of sorts : the second book by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Angel's Game, which I enjoyed more than the first - it reminded me of The Phantom of the Opera (but better written), and Erin Morgestern's second book, The Starless Sea. In no way a sequel, it has the same hallucinatory power

>15 red_guy: From your mouth (reply) to God's (FS's) ears.

>13 imaginarydata: While I agree that Tolkien's "world-building" is second-to-none, I dislike both the term and the (attempted, mostly) practice, except for JRRT's work itself. IMO story should drive setting, not the other way around, unless perhaps you're a linguistic genius as he was, or have very deep knowledge is some other area that informs the setting on every level. I think you're right that Herbert's Dune (the first novel only) is in between--Arrakis is a fully fleshed-out example of applying knowledge (ecology) to the creation of a "world". The remaining novels in the series merely continue the political machinations without adding much to the world-building, and frankly fall flat for me nowadays (I have been a fanboy of both JRRT and Herbert in my time). If I were the Folio editors I would never have published anything of Herbert's after Dune. Having only read Use of Weapons, which I remember absolutely nothing about, I cannot speak to Banks. I get the distinct impression and vaguely recall Gibson saying, that the Sprawl sequels were just a paycheck. I liked them well enough.

I humbly suggest Folio should stop the trend of publishing entire series (though I think Le Guin's Earthsea is all worthwhile, at least up to Tehanu), and focus instead on stand-alone novels of high quality, even in genre categories.

Viriconium, anyone? EDIT: The Pastel City, rather

>17 dhowarth333: I respect your point of view, but they would lose me as a customer. I didn't get the FS Dune until they started publishing the rest of the series, and I'm only just about to commit too Banks now they have published 3 volumes - if we get a fourth this year that will seal it.

I am quite prepared to accept that this is my oddity.

>18 arpd71:

Same here. I do want complete series.

Oh, I fully appreciate that I am in the minority on this one. To each his or her own. I've been winnowing down my collection (Folio and non-) for a variety of reasons, and have to use some criterion, which can mostly be reduced to "Will I ever read this particular volume again?" I admit to having a passionate (i.e., addictive) personality, and it's my way of slowly exterminating the collecting bug. Additionally, I realize that Folio needs to stay afloat and that publishing full series is a good strategy for garnering customer loyalty.

And I've benefited from the shift in focus over the last decade or so to more genre offerings from Folio. I've been begging them to publish my favorite novel (The Last Unicorn) since they started asking for requests, and now they have. I feel like they'd never have done that without the proven track record of genre series.

While we're speculating, the as yet officially unannounced Charles Vess-illustrated mystery title may turn up in the summer offering.

>17 dhowarth333: I don't really think you can have a coherent plot without a coherent setting. Obviously not everything has to be filled in to the tiniest brushstroke, but a surefire way to screw up a story's heft is being too fast and loose with its surroundings.

>17 dhowarth333: Viriconium, yes, and all of them please.

Tangent, but I humbly suggest that the only coherent ways to read Dune are as follows:

Books 1+2
Books 1+2+3+4

Book 1 alone completes the narrative movement, but not the thematic one. Dune gives you the hero's ascent. Dune Messiah passes judgment on that ascent. Books 3 and 4 extend that critique into a broader philosophical inquiry into power, time, religion, and human possibility.

(Maybe there's a rewarding way to read 1-6, but I've only made it through 5, and that didn't give me much confidence in the potential of 6, especially given the power of 4, which in some ways is my favorite of them, as it is so strange and daring while still being entertaining.)

>23 abysswalker: If you stop at Book 2, though, Dune is a completely different animal thematically than if you read at least through Book 4. Herbert wrote Book 2 almost as an indictment against the fan reaction to Book 1, and course corrects to his original vision by the end of Book 3. Book 4 (my personal favorite) is where all of the pieces come together and the saga reaches it's thematic climax. Books 5 and 6 are almost post-scripts... they are interesting expansions to the Dune universe, but they serve mostly to validate the choices made in Book 4. I suspect Herbert was building to something more rewarding in Book 7, but he unfortunately passed before concluding the saga.

>24 HonorWulf: agree. 1+2 is a complete story, 1-4 is a complete story, they are different stories, 1 alone is incomplete, 1-3 is incomplete. I'm glad I've read through 4. 3 is not bad and also not special (I can barely even remember any characters from it) but you do need it to get to 4.

Do we think summer is too soon to be thinking about the presumed 2 volume Anna Karenina SE?

>17 dhowarth333: Whenever Folio run their Fantasy/Sci-Fi surveys I, and others, always suggest Viriconium. Fingers crossed.

I'm very much hoping for more Iain M Banks - My preference would be Excession, but I can live with State of the Art - better still let's have both!

Some mention has been made of Godel Escher Bach at various times - that'd be a day one purchase for me. I'd also hope for a new run of some of the classic philosophical/political works. The recent Cicero is really nice, and any similar revisiting of other classics would be wonderful.

>25 abysswalker: Which is why I think it's interesting/disappointing that Denis Villeneuve is stopping with Dune Messiah. Based on the changes that were made to end of the first book, I suspect he's only interested in the Dune 1+2 story, so I'm a little apprehensive on how he ends his trilogy. But hopefully, they'll continue the movies with a different director since I think you really need to get thru Book 4 in order to appreciate Herbert's overall intent -- the Golden Path isn't explicitly mentioned until Book 3, which is really the backbone of the entire saga.

>29 HonorWulf: I have only read the first two books so far, though I have 3 and 4 waiting in the wings (FS editions, of course). But some things that work well in book form don't work as well on film, and vice versa. Maybe that played a part in Villeneuve's decision - from what I've read about 3 and 4, that seems quite possible, though as noted above I speak from a good bit of ignorance (my usual form of discourse!). Or maybe he just wanted to move on to other things.

>30 coynedj: Without spoilers, Book 2 leaves the reader in a place where they believe they understand what Herbert was trying to say in Book 1. This particular message is appealing to some readers, including Villeneuve based on my interpretations of his interviews. However, Herbert throws a major monkey wrench into this thinking by the end of Book 3, which makes you question everything from the first two books, and he then doubles down in Book 4. It's all very cinematic and filmable, but the message evolves and changes dramatically from book to book, alienating some readers along the way who preferred things the way they were at the end of Book 2.

I am reminded of those that say The Godfather glorifies mafia life. It has always seemed to me that anyone that thinks the life as described in the book as anything like glorious needs to look closely at their moral compass. It broken.

>32 Cardboard_killer:

Very true.

>17 dhowarth333: I would absolutely love a Viriconium edition. I do love the Pastel City, but In Viriconium is so immaculately written and A Storm of Wings is so wonderfully weird-- would love to see a box set, even if your reply was about single novels.

>17 dhowarth333:

I think it really depends on whether the entire series is actually good or not. In the case of Dune, I'd argue that there is only one genuinely good book in the series (the first one), a couple of passable books (the next two) and then abject trash. I strongly suspect Herbert was suffering from severe mental decline (I wonder if anyone has done a textual analysis - as was done for Pratchett?). For me, I just pretend Dune is standalone. I think a lot of the Folio customer base are intrinsically collectors more than readers, so being able to add nice-looking books to their collection is the priority, rather than the quality of the individual texts as words on a page. I don't think the LT Folio Devotees really represents the average current Folio customer in terms of wants and needs.

I'm sure there are lengthy series out there where this kind of quality drop isn't the case, mind. Hitch-hikers is still pretty good all the way, albeit the final book is certainly marmite.

>35 stubedoo: For me, the first Dune novel is the only one remotely worthwhile from a literary standpoint (I have read them all multiple times), and that's a stretch. I give full marks to Herbert for the "science" fiction aspects, and he helped bring ecology into the array of disciplines acceptable to SF readers as topics (Tiptree and Ballard helped accomplish this), but Herbert's dialogue, even in the first novel, is simply ludicrously bad. Listen to the audiobook sometime to get a sense of how outlandish and simultaneously wooden some characters come across. It kinda works for Baron Harkonnen, who is meant to be a caricature of "Galactic Overlord", seemingly, but I can't help laughing out loud reading his parts.

The less said about Villeneuve's "adaptation" the better. How do you rip out the backbone of the story (i.e., the Spacing Guild monopoly on transport) and not gut the entire plot? You don't. I got about halfway through the first half.

Gratified to see all the Viriconium love; the later books are challenging on a level that SF/F rarely achieves, which is great, even if some of it is incredibly bleak. It's one of the few exceptions to my lack of desire for Folio to do complete series (as is Gormenghast).

>36 dhowarth333: Viriconium and Gormenghast are true rarities in the genre-- the writing in them both is exceptional.

I'd put John Crowley in that category as well, though the only series he ever did was Aegypt, which has very niche appeal.

Is it likely we could see an Agatha Christie limited edition as it is the 50th anniversary of her death this year? I see Suntup are producing a new edition of the murder of Roger Ackroyd so don't know whether that makes it less likely or not.

>37 UltansLibrary: I agree that Crowley belongs in that select group. I haven't read the Aegypt sequence, only Little, Big and Ka: Dar Oakley yada yada, but he is certainly one of the best living genre writers.

I'd like to see more shortcstory collections. Le Guin? Tiptree?

>39 dhowarth333: Not a Le Guin short story but I would love to see The Lathe of Heaven. We've had nice editions of Earthsea (Folio plus Curious King is planning to do at least the first 3), The Dispossessed (Folio and Gollancz Emporium), Left Hand of Darkness (Folio), but the Lathe of Heaven is a great story I think and deserving of nice treatment.

As far as I can tell only paperbacks are available right now, not even a decent trade hardcover and the one I have has atrocious print quality to boot.

Unfortunately, it seems Folio is done with Le Guin.

>40 zorg2099: LOA has Lathe gathered with a few of her other short works bound as one volume: https://www.loa.org/books/five-novels/

>Oh I'll take a look, thanks. I don't own any LOA books but I hear they are decently made for the price.

Yes, the LoA books are great for what they are. I personally don't care for most of Le Guin's novels , but absolutely love her early short story output (those in The Compass Rose, esp.) Alas, probably never to be a Folio edition. I find her a bit preachybat novel length and it gets tedious for me, but the short-medium length formats I think are pitch perfect ("Solitude", "Gwilan's Harp", "Nine Lives", "Malheur County", etc.) Seems like Library of America is avoiding anything not "Hainish" though they did to their credit issue a whopping volume of her poetry.

>44 dhowarth333: I believe LoA hopes eventually to publish Le Guin's complete fiction, poetry, and essays. They've already published six volumes of fiction (only two of which comprise the Hainish novels and stories) and one of poetry. And they will soon be publishing the Earthsea books in two volumes.

>45 JacobHolt: Ah, I stand corrected. I was conflating my dislike for her novels for my lack of enthusiasm for her Hainish sequence :-). I'll keep an eye out for the LoA shorts collection(s), to round out my collection. I see they are also planning to publish the "Catwings" stories; now that's an odd choice.

>44 dhowarth333: Pendragon Press put out a limited edition of The Compass Rose of Folio-ish quality (cloth cover, sewn binding, acid-free paper, signed be Le Guin). The price on the secondary market has gone up a bit since I got mine, but there are several floating around for sale right now.

Lord John Press did a limited letterpress edition of "Gwilan's Harp" which is quite nice but pricy if you want the hardbound version, which I did.

Has anyone suggested, or asked about, getting Project Hail Mary as a companion to The Martian this summer? Forgive me if I missed someone already mentioning it. Does anyone have the Subterranean Press edition?

>46 dhowarth333: My daughter loved Catwings. I'd better not tell her about this.

>39 dhowarth333: yeah, I'd grab probably anything by Crowley if Folio ever decides to publish him (though the odds are unlikely, I feel).

Engine Summer and Little Big are phenomenal -- really enjoy his early work like The Deep and Beasts as well, and Ka is a late-era masterpiece. I am loving Aegypt so far-- I'm about halfway through the sequence now.

>47 ambyrglow: Both of those are nice editions, both of which I used to own ;-).

>50 UltansLibrary: Crowley is my favorite fiction writer (hence my username). Folio did have Little, Big in an LE survey some years ago, long before the Incunabula edition saw print. So I know Crowley has been on their radar. I adore the Aegypt novels and would love a nice edition, but they're even more niche than his more-overtly-genre output.

As nice as the Incunabula edition was, I think a more readably sized edition of Little, Big would be really welcome. Little, Big seems like the obvious place to start, but some of the 70s stuff would be welcome too.

>52 Auberon: 100%.

I've been waiting for Little, Big for some time - it would be great to get an FS edition!

>54 coynedj: I'd have no problem calling Little Big the greatest fantasy novel ever written. I do have the incunabula edition, but if Folio were to do their treatment, I'd probably have to jump on it, depending on the art of course.

>55 UltansLibrary: Ah, but have you read Jack Vance's Lyonesse?

>56 Elysium72: The Lyonesse trilogy; Litte, Big, and; half a dozen other novels vie for the distinction, I would say. The Lord of the Rings and Gormenghast for instance. Recently, someone in another thread called *my* nominee for best ever underrated ;-(. I say we avoid hyperbole; therein lies madness..

Comparing Little, Big with Lyonesse is an interesting exercise, though. Both deal with "Faerie" in quite different ways.

Vance's sardonic wit seeps out of nearly every paragraph, but he almost drops down into an earnest register at times in Lyonesse, esp. in Suldrun's Garden. He somehow "disenchants" fantasy (unicorns pulling royal carriages, the "rationalization" of magic as in Dying Earth) while instilling a sense of mystery and wonder nonetheless. Lyonesse is his crowning achievement, IMO, and I would love to see a Folio Society edition with the right artist (I don't know who that would be).

Little, Big is better known, and brilliant. Crowley is probably the best living sentence-level writer of fantasy, maybe near the top both in and out-side genre, and Little, Big is a slow burn of mysterious melancholic reflection. I'd buy a FS edition in a heartbeat. The Incunabula, which I see on eBay, looks enormous and clunky, and the square binding makes me wonder if it would hold up to repeated reading; I don't know much about its publication, but am tempted to grab one.

I also have criticisms of both, which I won't air here.

>57 dhowarth333: Little, Big, is an underknown masterpiece. Folio Society should indeed print it.

Would you be opposed to a multiple-volume edition? Big book.

>58 Shotcaller: No, I think a multi-volume edition would be perfect. There are a number of Folio editions which are great in theory, but which are impossible to actually read comfortably in practice. Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy is a prime example. I was insanely excited to get my hands on it, as my old BOMC edition was getting pretty ratty with repeated readings and dipping in for a chapter or two on a regular basis, but the FS book is so humongous that I just use my kindle. Nothing wrong with vol. 1 and vol. 2 (probably all it would take with L, B).

>56 Elysium72: I've read Suldrun's garden, but have yet to finish the sequence! It's been years though--due for a reread before I venture further.

>57 dhowarth333: you got me there! I do think Little Big is in contention, but again, so are others. Gormenghast is transcendent as well.

I do like the incunabula edition, but it definitely is a bit on the clunky side and would likely not hold up well to multiple rereads-- I have a reading copy of the book that I don't mind getting beat up as well, as it's just a mass market paperback.

This is probably a long shot, but I'd love to see Blindsight by Peter Watts, or maybe a Firefall Blindsight/Echopraxia double feature..

>61 dhowarth333: Blindsight was superb, but I've never read Echopraxia. Does it measure up to it's predecessor?

>62 coynedj: As "difficult" as Blindsight is some respects, Echopraxia is a killer by comparison. With Blindsight, it helped that I had a modest layperson's understanding of philosophy of consciousness, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology and a couple other relevant areas of knowledge. With Echopraxia I was utterly lost for the first few chapters. I finally gave up and listened to the audiobook, and it turns out it gets "easier" (still a bit denser that Blindsight for hard science fiction content, but manageable) just after where I quit. Don't get me wrong; if you didn't fully grok all of the stuff about vampires, consciousness, etc. from Blindsight, you'll be lost, but once everything clicks it's as good IMO as the first book. It's a wild ride, for sure, but the two books are of a piece, and together stand as one of the towering achievements of so-called "hard" SF.

It has more of everything that makes Blindsight unforgettable, plus zombies, more vampires, human hive minds. I'm not doing it justice, but I feel it's definitely worth the effort. Maybe a re-read of Blindsight is a good place to start.

Now that I've written all of this, I'm mostly convinced Folio would never publish it. It'll probably never reach the level of popular appeal that even something like Book of the New Sun achieved.

>48 BreakBeatDJ: sorry for the late reply. I do have the SubPress Martian edition. It's unremarkable in any way. I'd even go as far as to say the cover artwork was a downgrade versus the iconic trade edition. But at least has better materials and build, and unlike the Folio edition, is not square backed.

Teaser image is up. this time blurred.
guesses? other than the obvious F451 reprint?
I don't see anything resembling a standard Mythago Wood, which was the one I was hoping for.

>65 dyhtstriyk: The Odyssey is in the bottom right. I'm guessing that the middle left is The Starless Sea. Grapes of Wrath has been suggested for one of the upper right books, which seems like a good guess to me.

I don't see anything that could be a new Banks, unless it's the top left.

>65 dyhtstriyk:

The book with the red cross on it reminds me of the FS version of Melmoth the Wanderer. But I can't imagine the new-and-improved FS reprinting that title.

That's a standard edition of Herodotus in the middle. The cover matches one of the illustrations. A definite buy for me.

The red one in two volumes doesn't seem to be IT.

I find this teasing game to be annoying. Yes, there will be books. What they are? Useful information is rather scarce on that issue.

>72 coynedj: The reveal is tomorrow so not long to wait.

It was more fun when they used emojis to tease the titles.

>67 Mooch360: Someone in the Folio fans Facebook group said they recently emailed them about future Culture books and was told no plans for the time being. Disappointing if true. I shall send an email expressing my interest in the meantime and hope the feedback counts for something.

>75 zorg2099: What? That's very disappointing! I will get on the blower to them too.

>75 zorg2099: Best to take Customer Service replies with a grain of salt. They prematurely leaked some new releases a year or so ago and have been in deflection mode since then. For instance, I sent them an email a few weeks ago when the initial 300 copies of The Iliad sold out, and they told me there was no plans to receive additional copies, and then the second batch showed up on the website two days later...

Do you know if there is a letterpress edition of Melmoth the Wanderer?

And the Summer Collection 2026 titles, launching 5th May, are:

The Wanderer and Other Old-English Poems, ill. by Alan Lee
Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk, ill. by Lela Harris
Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, ill. by Sam Weber
Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, ill. by Owen Gent
Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, ill. by Charles Vess
Homer, The Odyssey, ill. by Clive Hicks-Jenkins
Morgenstern, The Starless Sea, ill. by Cristina Bencina
Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, ill. by Gérard DuBois

Herodotus, The Histories, ill. by Nick Hayes
Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, ill. by Jack Smyth
Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees, ill. by Dina Brodsky

Thank you for posting this! The Old English poems and The Making of the Atomic Bomb are must-buys for me.

A strong collection! The Wanderer and Herodotus are 2 editions I didn’t expect to release as SEs - hopefully this is exciting for the classics crowd, along with Steinbeck and The Odyssey. More Susanna Clarke is welcome too.

I'm honestly delighted.

The Wanderer
Beale St
Ladies of Grace Adieu
Odyssey
Grapes of Wrath
Herodotus
Atomic Bomb

All definite buys for me. I've been eyeing the wanderer LE on the second hand market for a while but the price kept me away as I have to budget for some fine press new releases. I think the SE will be enough to keep me happy.

ps. In the recent non fiction survey I think I answered Carl Sagan's Cosmos in the end but I was caught in two minds between that and Rhodes. I'm still hoping they will do Cosmos but I'm really happy with this release too.

The Hidden Life of Trees has me very interested.

Oy, Folio continues to destroy my wallet:

Order #1:
The Wanderer and Other Old-English Poems, ill. by Alan Lee
Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, ill. by Charles Vess
Morgenstern, The Starless Sea, ill. by Cristina Bencina

Order #2:
Herodotus, The Histories, ill. by Nick Hayes
Homer, The Odyssey, ill. by Clive Hicks-Jenkins
Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, ill. by Gérard DuBois

I have Fahrenheit 451, so that'll most likely be a skip unless there's significant new content in this edition, which doesn't appear to be the case.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb is an exciting choice (and makes me wish I'd picked up The Origins of Totalitarianism, the two sets would look nice side by side).

I'm very happy with these, particularly the Baldwin and Steinbeck books. I've been considering buying Of Mice and Men in the secondary market but it's not cheap. Now I'm hoping FS might reprint it and possibly even publish Steinbeck's short stories too

A very good batch... for me (when the wallet allows) it will be:

The Wanderer and Other Old-English Poems
Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories
Morgenstern, The Starless Sea
Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Don't know The Hidden Life of Trees but it sounds interesting. And then I've already got Bradbury, and the LE of Homer. I've been eyeing the LE of Herodotus, The Histories, (to match my LE of The Peloponnesian War) but that seems to be stuck at over 1500GBP on the second hand market so I will probably end up buying the SE one being released now.

It will be interesting to see which books we will get a signed 100 copies release of - maybe the books by Morgenstein and Clarke (and hopefully the one illustrated by Alan Lee, The Wanderer...)?

>80 FitzJames: Very happy to see an SE of The Wanderer, and unexpected. Herodotus looks good as well.

This collection is the first in a while that looks like old Folio.

Anyone has read the secret life of trees? A trade coffee table edition has always caught my attention but I haven't bought it.

>90 dyhtstriyk:

I think you'll find this is The Hidden Life of Trees, not the same book as Folio's The Secret Life of Trees.

This new list neatly divides in two for me - those titles I don't have and don't want, and those I already have in a previous Folio incarnation.

>91 folio_books: My mistake. I was referring to Wohlleben's book.

A very different set compared to the Spring Collection. Old school Folio? I just read the Rhodes last year and donated the book to a local thrift shop.

Def in for The Odyssey, The Wanderer, and Starless Sea.

I bought Gatsby from the last collection and am trying to reread it (it could be the 4th time-ish) and it's tough. I think I'm getting tired of rereading. So that eliminates the Rhodes, Grapes of Wrath, Beale St., and Fahrenheit 451.

But I'm weak, very weak. Like so weak I can't lift my own spirits weak, and I do like the looks of some of these so . . .

>93 dyhtstriyk: I enjoyed The Hidden Life of Trees, but I am a tree lover so probably biased!

>90 dyhtstriyk: Yes. Wohlleben's books are very good. I'd also recommend "The Weather Detective."

>92 folio_books:

Same here, plus two books where I already have perfectly fine editions by other publishers. I think it's the first time since I discovered them in 2012 that there's not a single title for me. The March release at least had one, which I won't buy until there's more due to their over-the-top shipping fee to Germany.

No Banks? So guessing they have stopped to Culture series after three. Well, that me not buying them then.

>92 folio_books:

Same for me, Glenn, except that I didn't buy The Wanderer LE, and have been regretting it, mildly. The problem I had with it was the Alan Lee illustrations - he makes everything look like Tolkien - but perhaps at SE price levels I can get over that. Or, the availability of the SE may reduce the LE prices to a level I can put up with.

>81 CJDelDotto: The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a launch day purchase for me.

The others I'll acquire gradually.

Delighted that they're finally doing an SE of The Wanderer! Although not sure about the grey cover with the pencil sketch. Will probably pick up The Starless Sea and The Odyssey at some point too.

I am surprised that they've made a new version of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd rather than just reprinting the original or sprucing it up into an LE for the 50th Anniversary - the old version isn't that old and is still listed on the website. I'd assumed the new Christie designs would just be for the one-off books and they'd stick with the previous design for any more Poirot/Marple. Do we know if the interior is any different?

A bit disappointing since to me it suggests that they may reprint the Christie novels they've already done with the new cover design before making editions of novels they haven't done yet.

I’ll definitely pick up The Wanderer SE with my winter order. Happy to see! Loved The Starless Sea but have the Books Illustrated edition.

Beale Street for sure. More Baldwin please.

>103 Cardboard_killer: Beale Street is a great choice! I would be excited about the FS Baldwin’s if I didn’t have the LOA Baldwins.

They have priced themselves out of the market for me, due to ROW pricing, but that is a decent collection - one of the best in a while.

The Starless Sea and The Making of the Atomic Bomb for me. And possibly The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, although I already have a slipcased version of that with Charles Vess’ illustrations, so it might come down to the specs/additional features.

I have an older FS edition of Odyssey, from memory I think it’s translated by mr. Graves.

Can anyone weigh in if it’s worth having these side by side? I get that it’s subjective but I’m interested in opinions.

Graves' translation is the era of paraphrase rather than translation. Martin Hammond is the best go-to.

>107 snottlebocket: Some points of comparison from Odyssey Book 22, lines 1-7 (stolen from a Reddit thread, with some editions relevant to this forum).

Rieu, 1946 - used in the 1974 FS edition, illustrated by Elisabeth Frink.
Throwing off his rags, the resourceful Odysseus leaped up on to the great threshold with his bow and his full quiver, and poured out the swift arrows at his feet. “The match that was to seal your fate is over,’ he called out to the Suitors, ‘Now for another target which no man has yet hit – if I can hit it and Apollo grants my prayer.’

Fitzgerald, 1961 - available from Franklin Library's 1979 edition, illustrated by WT Mars.
Now shrugging off his rags the wiliest fighter of the islands
leapt and stood on the broad door sill, his own bow in his hand
He poured out at his feet a rain of arrows from the quiver
and spoke to the crowd: “So much for that. Your clean-cut game is over,
Now watch me hit a target that no man has hit before,
if I can make this shot. Help me, Apollo.”

Fagles, 1996 - used in the Grahame Baker-Smith illustrated Folio edition from 1996.
Now stripping back his rags Odysseus master of craft and battle
vaulted onto the great threshold, gripping his bow and quiver
bristling arrows, and poured his flashing shafts before him
loose at his feet, and thundered out to all the suitors:
“Look – your crucial test is finished, now, at last!
But another’s target’s left that no one’s hit before --
we’ll see if I can hit it – Apollo give me glory!”

Hammond, 2000 - recommended by >108 InVitrio: but not available from FS.
Now resourceful Odysseus bared his limbs from the rags and leapt onto the great threshold, with the bow in his hand and the quiver full of arrows. He poured out the swift arrows there in front of his feet, and said to the suitors: ‘So here is one hard trial brought to its end. Now for another target, which no man has hit – let me see if I can strike it, if Apollo will grant my prayer.’

Wilson, 2017 - Current 2026 FS edition, illustrated by Clive Hicks-Jenkins.
Odysseus ripped off his rags. Now naked,
he leapt upon the threshold with his bow
and quiverfull of arrows, which he tipped
out in a rush before his feet, and spoke.
“Playtime is over. I will shoot again,
towards another mark no man has hit.
Apollo, may I manage it!”

There's also a partial translation available from a 1948 FS edition of Odyssey by F.L. Lucas, that I couldn't find an example from.

>109 A.Godhelm: I know no Greek but none of these translations seem perfectly smooth to me though the Fitzgerald followed by Fagles are best. The hype regarding Wilson is overdone

>100 Ibkay: I wonder whether, for this new FS edition, Rhodes revised the text at all. In the 40 years since the book's original publication, new evidence has emerged, and the consensus on how the "Little Boy" bomb worked has changed considerably, which Rhodes himself has previously acknowledged.

>111 CJDelDotto: Oh, that would move it to a must buy for me if he did.

>111 CJDelDotto: Maybe Folio managed to get a new introduction from the author himself - which I sometimes feel is often underappreciated or underrated in many of the Folio SEs.

That'll hopefully give him an opportunity to neatly provide some additional context and "errata/addendum" to the original book. I'm not realistically expecting a completely revised text at all in this Folio edition.

>104 RRCBS: This got me thinking: what are the books people have multiple versions of? I also have the LoA Baldwin, but I like the FS size and paper more, so will have both. I have three copies of The Great Gatsby (none are FS), and three of Pride & Prejudice. I try not to get multiple copies, but sometimes it just happens that I like a newly published version better than what I have. I tend to give books away, but it has to be to a person I think will enjoy it.

>114 Cardboard_killer: one of my oddities is that I can’t stand having multiple copies of the same book. It just bugs me so much I have to get rid of one.

>114 Cardboard_killer: There are a fewer books where I have both a copy inscribed to me by the author and a nicer edition published later: Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, Katherine Kurtz's Deryni Rising. Also a few books where I have both the ARC and the published version; I like to compare and see what changes in the final edit. And I kept my battered paperback of James Thurber's Many Moons after I bought the letterpress version, because I would like to read it to my nieces and I know what havoc preschool-aged kids can wreak on books.

>114 Cardboard_killer: I'm personally more than happy enough to upgrade to a Folio or Fine Press edition of a book I already owned if I see the value in it.

In such cases like the Fagles Homer (and the Wilson editions when I get them) I donated or gifted the older copies. The Tolkien collection on the other hand continues to grow. I've got the Alan Lee Folio limited editions as well as the current standards and plan to eventually get hold of the 1990 and 1977 Folio editions. And there's more from Harper Collins...etc.

But my Tolkien collecting habit and the rest of my book buying are quite distinct.

Different illustrations can also be a reason to have more than one copy of a book I really like I suppose. I am slowly acquiring the Folio Earthsea books but I also have the Charles Vess illustrated omnibus and plan to keep it.

Let's try...

Now the stripped-of-clothes manywile Odysseus
Leaped onto the great threshold, holding bow and quiver
Full of arrows, then poured the fast barbs
Before his feet, and between the suitors spoke:

"So this flawless game has finished;
Now this other goal, which not yet has scored a man,
I'll chase, and may I fluke it, my prayer please Apollo."

The difficulties with it in particular are:

-nobody actually knows what "oudon" (l. 3) means, it's thought to be threshold;
-nobody knows either what "aaatos" sic (l. 5) means, it's in the form of a negative, but also applies as an epithet to the River Styx, so something sacred, immortal, unimpeachable;
-l. 6 ends with "anēr" (man) and 7 with Apollo, so there's a contrast between man and god, next to impossible to get across with the right word order;
-there are different words for arrows in line 3 (ios and oïstos).

Also none of the translations get the "tykhōmi" sense in line 7 - Odysseus is being modest and using a word linked with being lucky. In the middle form, so "luck for one's own benefit". The idea being that it's so difficult that you need a god to add luck to skill.

Just to add to the comparisons

Peter Green 2018 University of California Press. (Just a standard hard-cover but at least has a sewn binding which isn't a given for hard-covers these days).

Now resourceful Odysseus stripped himself of his rags
and sprang up on the great threshold, taking the bow
and the shaft-packed quiver. He poured out the swift arrows
there at his feet, and addressed the suitors, saying:
"This contest's over, decisively ended; and now
I'll go for another target, reached by no man hitherto,
to see whether I can hit it, and Apollo grant me glory."

For my part I've noticed that opinions on translations (be it Homer or other well known classics) can get surprisingly vitriolic and often from people who don't speak the original. I don't speak Homeric or modern Greek but I have personally enjoyed reading different translations experiencing different takes, trying a new one for each re-read. I don't care for prose translations of verse though that much I'll say with rare exceptions like Tolkien's Beowulf although that isn't my favourite Beowulf either.

ps. For anyone interested in Fitzgerald, Everyman's Library has it as well although the while the Iliad is still in print it seems like the Odyssey might no longer be. Has illos by Barnaby Fitzgerald and a decently made cloth bound hard-cover.

I have the Fagles versions and I will also get the Wilson ones. Translations are interesting and it’s fun to have multiple versions of the same books to see the different approaches each translator took.

>119 zorg2099: I'm sure I've said it before, but Green is my current favorite, simply because the few Greek linquists I know sing its praises in terms of fidelity to the original ancient Greek. The biggest criticism is that it doesn't have the elaborated flurishes that modern translators like to add (i.e. Fagles) to punch up the text, which I find more distracting myself. Wilson is a mixed bag - I do appreciate it's readability, but some of the colloquialisms (i.e. "Playtime is over!") pull me right out of the text.

>121 HonorWulf: Indeed you did, I bought Green based on your recommendation :)

I also want to read Lattimore at some point though best I can tell you need to look for fairly old editions to find a decent hardcover. I don't have them yet so can't post an exerpt.

For anyone considering the Iliad as well there is a comparison tool. Many of these translators have done the Odyssey as well so it may give you a taste for their style https://www.iliadtranslations.com/compare

edit: Sadly the lowest quality edition I have in terms of physical spec (perfect bound hard-cover) is my personal favourite, Caroline Alexander's Iliad. The other non Folio books like Green and Fitzgerald at least are Smyth-sewn.

>120 Noel_G: Exactly my view as well. I actually enjoy reading these different translations, and I'm grateful that many trained linguists make the attempt to preserve these works for modern audiences.

It's not like we can go back in time and fully grasp the original language and ethos of that era. This is the best we have, and more versions do not diminish any existing translations or the original.

>121 HonorWulf: I got Daniel Mendelsohn's translation of the Odyssey recently after first considering and then discarding Wilson's version. His translation:

But, stripping off his rags, Odysseus, that man of great cunning,
Leapt up upon the great threshold, holding the bow and the quiver
Which was filled to the brim with arrows. He poured the swift arrows out
Right there by his feet, then spoke a word to the Suitors:
"So this fateful contest of yours is well and truly over!
Now I'll find another target which no one has ever shot at
Before - and if I hit it, may Apollo grant me glory"

It's a Penguin Classic hardback published in 2025

>113 Ibkay: I hope that Rhodes has a new forward. That said, I don't think that the amount of revision necessary to update the info pertaining to the "Little Boy" device would actually be particularly substantial. Basically, we know now that the bomb was a "girl": criticality was achieved by means of a large hollow cylinder of uranium being shot down the cannon barrel onto a smaller rod of uranium, whereas in the past, it was thought to be a "boy," with a smaller projectile of uranium penetrating a larger mass of the material.

Regardless, I've always admired this book (and even got Rhodes himself to autograph my first edition of it) because of the sweep of Rhodes' narrative and the power of his prose.

>110 RavenSeeker: 'I know no Greek'

Nor do I so I wonder how you or I should judge which is 'best'. The one you feel flows most naturally if you were trying to read it aloud? As Homer would presumably have been doing.

I find the Fagles a bit clumsy to read, myself, but I have no idea how faithful it is to the original. Or not.

>126 Cat_of_Ulthar: No very faithful--Fagles has Penelope taking Odysseus to divorce court and getting half of everything (which explains only one oar), plus alimony!

>126 Cat_of_Ulthar: It is difficult but for me the flow of the language, even if impossible to imagine in the mouth of someone today, is critical. Homeric Greek I'm sure is best appreciated in the original. Even modern Greek seems to pose difficulty for translators. I've been trying to persuade FS to publish the Greek poet Cavafy but from what I've read, Cavafy didn't consider any English translators properly captured the intensity of his poems.
Of other languages, I find German literature translates poorly and loses it's literary spark. I've never understood the attraction of Thomas Mann for instance, though I did enjoy David Duke's translation of Death in Venice. French is best in my view and I've enjoyed a number of translators of Proust, Lydia Davis's translation of The Way by Swanns being fairly recent

>124 RavenSeeker: Mendelsohn's on the list! Reviews have been quite positive.

The spine of The Hidden Life of Trees appears to have 'Hidden' blind stamped, rather a nice little detail

That's a nice touch.

There have been multiple discussions about translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and I really appreciate them all. I am a bit conflicted about verse translations however. I can't imagine Paradise Lost or Shakespeare translated in another language and similarly I imagine much is lost when translating from an ancient or modern language that is inflected. But, if one were to translate Shakespeare into Spanish or French, I imagine a plain prose translation would seem a bit difficult to classify as being in the same spirit. There is a difference between prose and poetry, but I guess I would also have to say poetry especially, and some prose, is really difficult to capture the feel of the original and idiomatic constructions. I think there's a reason we're discussing translations of the Iliad and Odyssey and not Herodotus. And, as an English speaker, I imagine non-Indo-European languages are just really challenging to translate.

>132 imaginarydata: as someone who translated poetry both from and into Hebrew, I can say that the fact it’s a non-Indo-European language, doesn’t make the translation work any more difficult per se.

My feeling is rather that each language has its inherent toolkit (grammatical, morphological etc), and the challenge is specific to each language pair (source and target). For example, it’s easier to translate Rilke’s poetry (the rhymed and metered part of his output) into Hebrew than into English, as Hebrew’s morphological flexibility allows you to find long chains of rhymes much more easily than English does – even though that on absolute terms, English and German are much closer to each other.

Thinking of prose: I think that also depends on the source text. I can’t imagine that translating something as brilliantly written as Nabokov’s Pnin would be an easy task. And you’re right that we’re not debating Herodotus so much, but there were quite a few discussions about different translations of the Russian classics into English.

I in general came to view translation as an interpretation (not dissimilar to performing a musical piece written by another) – you have the source text, and then need to render it into another form. To accomplish this, you must make a myriad of decisions, both macro (general register of your language, verse or prose, rhymed or not, etc) and micro (every single word in every single phrase and their order…). So rather than looking for universally “best” translation, it could be rather a search for a translation whose choices, in total, are aligned more closely with what you, as a reader, would like to derive from your reading experience.

Does anybody know whether the new edition of The Wanderer will be with parallel Old English and Modern English?

On the perennial "translation of Homer" question, I would just add that, as someone who, with aching slowness, read both the Odyssey and Iliad in Greek some decades ago, my favorite translator is Pope. His is of course far from the "feel" of the Greek, but of course all translations are. But his is by an undoubtedly first rate poet (at least where he wasn't relying too much on his assistants), and if his English is somewhat archaic to us, my understanding is that Homer's Greek was similarly artificial to the archaic and classical Greeks..

Ultimately, I think it's what you enjoy and go back to. I mostly go back to the Greek, but also to Pope when my brain's not quite up to it.

>111 CJDelDotto: >112 ambyrglow: >113 Ibkay:

An update on a few of the Summer titles:

Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is indeed a centenary edition.

Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu features a new introduction by the author.

Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb features a new introduction by the author, and 'a curated selection of 100 archival photographs, sourced from institutions such as the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Niels Bohr Archive.'

Wohlleben's The Hidden Life of Trees features a new introduction by the author.

---
Source:
https://entertainment-focus.com/2026/04/11/the-folio-society-reveals-titles-for-...

>135 FitzJames: 100 photos sounds promising indeed!

>135 FitzJames: The Making of the Atomic Bomb was already a day one purchase for me. This seals the plan.

Really appreciate the effort Folio puts into some of these standard editions - especially the new introductions by authors and additional bonus content.

I suppose this is one benefit of publishing contemporary works - there's a chance the original author is still around to shed some new light on the work from personal growth and experience.

Thanks for the info!

Any thoughts on The Starless Sea? Morgenstern's previous, The Night Circus, is listed by Folio in their new 'Romantasy' section. I've never knowingly read any romantasy, but I have a feeling it's not for me.

>138 Elysium72: I’ve read both Starless Sea and Night Circus and wouldn’t classify either as Romantasy (fair warning, haven’t ever read anything classified as Romantasy but have an high level understanding of what it is). To me they were both well written fantasy novels, with Night Circus the standout. But loved both.

Seems to me that Folio is trying to cash in on the biggest buzzword in publishing more than anything. The other book in that category right now is The Song of Achilles which I've read and I don't think (as best I understand it) it really fits into what's generally considered to be Romantasy. But publishers and especially book shops are casting an increasingly wide net when shelving things under Romantasy since the genre is selling really well.

>138 Elysium72: I read both shortly after each came out. TNC came out several years before TSS. Both were good, but only TNC was (and remains) memorable.

>138 Elysium72: I'm yet to read The Starless Sea, but I certainly won't classify The Night Circus as "Romantasy" - at least not based on the average quality and content of modern works published under that genre.

The quality of Morgenstern's prose alone already sets it far above what you'd typically get in today's so-called Romantasy books. On reading the opening paragraph of The Night Circus, you immediately perceive you've stumbled upon beautifully written words.

It's like placing Bronte's Jane Eyre under "Romance". Sure, it could somehow fit, but anyone who's read it knows it's far more complex and superior to the typical mediocre works that populate the larger portion of the romance genre.

I think this is an unfortunate side effect of forcibly categorizing works under some predefined rigid headers.

>119 zorg2099:
I have the Peter Green Odyssey and Iliad in a boxed set, and it's the translation I have so far enjoyed the most. Have also read Fagles and Fitzgerald, both of which enjoyed immensely. I have also tried Mendelssohn, but found him too clunky to fully enjoy, and DNFed. The one I really couldn't get on with was the Wilson. It may be more 'accessible' (whatever that means), but so much has been missed out to squeeze into the meter, and such jarring language. Both hardbacks went to charity.

>138 Elysium72: Can't speak to The Starless Sea (yet), but The Night Circus does contain elements of both fantasy and romance, and a precursory search of "romantasy" forums appears to include mentions of it. However, it's definitely more on the literary fringe of romantasy and is a far cry from genre stalwarts like A Court of Thorns and Roses or the Fourth Wing. I wouldn't let the label scare you off, though, it's an enjoyable book closer in kin to Susanna Clarke, Neil Gaiman and Alix Harrow, imo.

>139 RRCBS: >140 zorg2099: >141 niftium: >142 Ibkay: >144 HonorWulf: Thanks for all your clarifying comments.

And I want to add that The Starless Sea might feel less immediately accessible or likeable compared to The Night Circus, as, despite having a protagonist, it’s just as much about the world(s) it describes as it is about the protagonist’s story. But the world-building (or myth-building) is absolutely outstanding, and worth persevering for, in my opinion.

So, a very different flavour of literary joy to TNC, but loads of literary joy nonetheless – just don’t expect another TNC.

And… the protagonist is gay, which is awesome and still a rarity in sci-fi and fantasy literature today.

>138 Elysium72: I personally know six people who read The Night Circus. My wife, my eldest daughter, my mother-in-law, two co-worker librarians, and myself (so, five gals and one guy (me) ). We all read it within a few months of one another, and every single one of us enjoyed it quite a bit. When the passages wherein the perspective changes, and you the reader is immersed into the world of the circus as a spectator… It’s actually somewhat magical.

My two friends at work, my aforementioned eldest, along with my wife and I, all read The Plotless Sea (as named by my work pal).

None of us liked it. It’s barely a thumbs up at best.

It started somewhat promising, but meandered along until it became laughably absurd. So, so ridiculous.

But hey, give it a shot… But I suggest borrowing it before splurging on the Folio edition.

>138 Elysium72: well, there you go. Two opposing views for you to choose from :) I think we align in noting the reduced prominence of a single, continuously narrated plot in The Starless Sea (it’s not plotless – I could summarise the actual plot in a paragraph). We differ in judging how it affects the book; >147 betaraybill: felt it was laughably absurd and ridiculous, I feel the world / myth building was magical and unforgettable, but in a very different way from TNC.

I think it’s fair to say that you’d need to actively engage with The Starless Sea to enjoy it. There are multiple threads presented from the very beginning (the book doesn’t start with the actual plot), and for a long time it’s not clear how, if at all, they are related. But for me, slowly figuring out how they all fall into place to create a single, though complex story, was a big part of the joy of reading it.

>147 betaraybill: >148 BorisG: Thanks for your input. I am intrigued: absurd and ridiculous or magical and unforgettable? Or maybe absurd and magical. I'll have to give it a go now to find out!

>138 Elysium72: I loved The Night Circus but found The Starless Sea only passable. A few memorable visual scenes but the characters seemed rather flat.

It does have some elements of romantasy, but maybe closer to urban fantasy or the new enchantment/modern fairy tale (Gaiman). Lev Grossman's Magicians, which I loved, also comes to mind as a comparison point. Less intense though; PG to the Magicians R, if North America movie ratings help place things.

I read it in the Books Illustrated edition (which has great art direction for the book's vibe) but I'll probably pass that copy along at some point despite the nice illustrations because I don't really ever see myself reading it again, unlike The Night Circus.

>146 BorisG: "the protagonist is gay"

This would normally be a plus for me, but lest some other erstwhile reader get their hopes up, Zachary is unfortunately tiresome, and the romance part of the plot is underwhelming and vaguely incoherent. It reads like a 14 year old girl's idea of gay romance.

(That might sound overly critical, but I did still enjoy reading The Starless Sea mostly for the setting... once.)

Another touch point that might help a few readers decide whether it is for them: if the Malazan book of the fallen is the author's fan fiction for a AD&D/GURPS fantasy tabletop roleplaying game campaign (it was, btw), then Starless Sea reads like the author's fan fiction for a Mage: The {Ascension,Awakening} campaign.

(IMHO YMMV etc.)

>148 BorisG: Nicely put, and I hope I didn’t come across in too knavish a manner. :)

>149 Elysium72: “…absurd and ridiculous or magical and unforgettable?”

Why not both? ;)

Like I said, certainly give it a shot. If you don’t mind splurging, the Folio volume is quite nice looking.

>145 Elysium72: I loved TNC. I’ve read it 3 times and separately listened to the audiobook - and that was before I got the Books Illustrated and Folio versions. Her writing in this book really pulls you into the world she builds.

Starless Sea, on the other hand, I didn’t have the same reaction to. I thought it was good, but not memorable.

I find all this discussion of Eowyn Ivey's books interesting, not least because there's been no mention of To The Bright Edge of the World, which for me has been her best to date of what I've read (hasn't included The Starless Sea). A touch of magical realism, but no romantasy by any means.

>155 Willoyd: Maybe I'm unaware of things (a rational conclusion in many circumstances), but aren't Ivey and Morgenstern different people?

Nonetheless, To the Bright Edge of the World has been added to my ever-growing TBR list. As has The Night Circus, but maybe not The Starless Sea.

excited about If Beale Street Could Talk, I suspected it in the blurred preview since Gioanni's Room has the same format and if it does well hopefully it means they'll keep publishing his works. I wonder how the series could work with a universal design language if they decide to publish his non-fiction as well.

Pages have appeared for the Summer Collection (upc. 5th May), tho' a few have yet to be finalised:

Cloth-bound:
Fahrenheit 451 || £65 | £75 ROW | $90 US | $130 CA

The Grapes of Wrath || £90 | £105 ROW | $130 US | $180 CA
notes: ribbon bookmark

The Hidden Life of Trees || £65 | £75 ROW | $90 US | $130 CA

The Ladies of Grace Adieu || £65 | £75 ROW | $90 US | $130 CA
notes: fold-out endpapers (height 9 ½ inches, matching the Vess-illustrated JS&MN)

The Making of the Atomic Bomb || £150 | £175 ROW | $215 US | $300 CA

The Odyssey || £115 | £135 ROW | $165 US | $230 CA
notes: a.e.g. gunmetal, dual colour ink printing, ribbon bookmark, cloth-covered slipcase, foiled in gunmetal likewise

The Starless Sea || £70 | £80 ROW | $100 US | $140 CA
notes: t.e.g., ribbon bookmark

The Wanderer and Other Old-English Poems || £70 | £80 ROW | $100 US | $140 CA
notes: t.e.g., ribbon bookmark, cloth-covered slipcase (height 9 ½ inches)

Cloth- & Paper-bound:
If Beale Street Could Talk || £55 | £65 ROW | $80 US | $110 CA

The Histories || £120 | £140 ROW | $170 US | $240 CA
notes: t.e.g., dual black & blue ink printing, ribbon bookmark

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd || £55 | £65 ROW | $80 US | $110 CA

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https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/fahrenheit-451
https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/if-beale-street-could-talk
https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/odys-the-odyssey
https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/the-grapes-of-wrath
https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/the-hidden-life-of-trees
https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/the-histories-herodotus
https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/the-ladies-of-grace-adieu-and-other-stories
https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/the-making-of-the-atomic-bomb
https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/the-murder-of-roger-ackroyd
https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/the-starless-sea
https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/the-wanderer-and-other-old-english-poems

https://www.foliosociety.com/row/fahrenheit-451
https://www.foliosociety.com/row/if-beale-street-could-talk
https://www.foliosociety.com/row/odys-the-odyssey
https://www.foliosociety.com/row/the-grapes-of-wrath
https://www.foliosociety.com/row/the-hidden-life-of-trees
https://www.foliosociety.com/row/the-histories-herodotus
https://www.foliosociety.com/row/the-ladies-of-grace-adieu-and-other-stories
https://www.foliosociety.com/row/the-making-of-the-atomic-bomb
https://www.foliosociety.com/row/the-murder-of-roger-ackroyd
https://www.foliosociety.com/row/the-starless-sea
https://www.foliosociety.com/row/the-wanderer-and-other-old-english-poems

https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/fahrenheit-451
https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/if-beale-street-could-talk
https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/odys-the-odyssey
https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/the-grapes-of-wrath
https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/the-hidden-life-of-trees
https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/the-histories-herodotus
https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/the-ladies-of-grace-adieu-and-other-stories
https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/the-making-of-the-atomic-bomb
https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/the-murder-of-roger-ackroyd
https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/the-starless-sea
https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/the-wanderer-and-other-old-english-poems

https://www.foliosociety.com/ca/fahrenheit-451
https://www.foliosociety.com/ca/if-beale-street-could-talk
https://www.foliosociety.com/ca/odys-the-odyssey
https://www.foliosociety.com/ca/the-grapes-of-wrath
https://www.foliosociety.com/ca/the-hidden-life-of-trees
https://www.foliosociety.com/ca/the-histories-herodotus
https://www.foliosociety.com/ca/the-ladies-of-grace-adieu-and-other-stories
https://www.foliosociety.com/ca/the-making-of-the-atomic-bomb
https://www.foliosociety.com/ca/the-murder-of-roger-ackroyd
https://www.foliosociety.com/ca/the-starless-sea
https://www.foliosociety.com/ca/the-wanderer-and-other-old-english-poems

I've only been following The FS closely since around October. This collection looks amazing to me and much more special than the Winter25 or Spring26 collections. Some of these, which I said I wouldn't buy, like Fahrenheit and Beale Street, I probably will.

I thought the Wanderer would be more expensive so that's a pleasant surprise. However, I am still thinking about shelling out for the LE at some point despite the cost.

>160 zorg2099: I had the same reaction, I was expecting a 120GBP(Row) pricetag. Especially since they don't seem to have compromised much (full cloth, gilt top edge, kept the border illustrations). I love the Alan Lee illustrations for this too, I get the earlier comment that it "looks like Tolkien", but... it's Old English poems. That's entirely appropriate.

>156 coynedj:
Doh! Of course they are - I was mixing up my authors and books (for some reason I equated Night Circus to Snow Child - and no I have no idea why!). Not really surprising To The Bright Edge wasn't mentioned.....but it is a great book! Thanks for the very gently put correction!

>161 A.Godhelm:

I get the earlier comment that it "looks like Tolkien", but... it's Old English poems. That's entirely appropriate.

Absolutely agree with this point here. I think the samples I've seen look great in The Wanderer and a hint of Tolkien due to familiarity with Lee's prior work with just feels appropriate to the atmosphere for me personally.

180 author and illustrator signed copies of The Ladies of Grace Adieu releasing 30th April.

Design wise the Herodotus seems to be matching up with the current Cicero.

>165 assemblyman: That was v. much my thought likewise: both three-qtr. bound, slipcases with devices, set in Haarlemmer, pricing—all of a piece.

>164 FitzJames: Thank you for sharing this. Looks like they have confirmed a £215 (UK) price for this edition on Instagram.

>167 jasminesch: Piranesi's signed edition was £175 (£65 regular). The higher number (180) likely means little given how quickly Clarke's signed copies sell.

The answer appears to be £215 for The Ladies of Grace Adieu, UK that is.

Edit: ah haha, too late

>168 FitzJames: Hah! Adding an 'Edit' line to my reply would have made more sense, I see now.

I am grateful they told us the price, but I am not very happy with it. It's a dear favourite of mine, but the premium is a tad steep.

>169 jasminesch: Clarke is v. much a favourite author of mine likewise and I would—ridiculous as I know it is—adore the signed bookplate Folios of her works. But when Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell went live, the signature premium utterly sundered that wish.

So I have the standard release of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, of Piranesi, and will perforce have the standard of The Ladies of Grace Adieu. They sit nestled among their signed first/firsts, since the Folio signed copies are so stratospherically beyond my means.

>170 FitzJames: They really are wonderful books, and I know the signed bookplate is a bit silly, but oh, what a lovely silly thing it is! Like you, I was rather taken aback by the price of the signed Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell when it was released, and so held off purchasing, though I did later pick up Piranesi at (what I felt was) a more reasonable premium. Fortunately, I kept an eye on the secondary market and, more than a year later, managed to find a signed set for slightly below the original retail price, once the initial rush had passed. Still an eye-watering sum, but for whatever reason it felt more palatable having waited. I may well take the same approach with the Ladies.

An update: The Grapes of Wrath is both a buckram-bound volume, and has a buckram-covered slipcase.

>171 jasminesch: A lovely silly thing indeed! Very well done finding Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell later—having that and Piranesi I can quite see the signed The Ladies of Grace Adieu being a must, just a question of when. Completing the set and all that.

I cannot wait to see people's Clarke collections once this is in-hand, and then again in October, when The Bishop of Durham Attempts to Surrender the City lands.

>172 FitzJames: Relevant FSD thread for those who forget the difference (like me): Buckram vs cloth.

>174 A.Godhelm: In truth, the volume looks just as buckram ought to but to my eye the slipcase does not. Printed paper-covered slipcase? Yes. Buckram? No.

>164 FitzJames: The Ladies of Grace Adieu's preceding signed copies have been revised up to 190 in number.

>171 jasminesch: Prices are out for the signed edition of The Ladies of Grace Adieu & Other Stories, revised prices I may add:

£175 | £200 ROW | $250 US | $350 CA

https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/the-ladies-of-grace-adieu-and-other-stories-sign...
https://www.foliosociety.com/row/the-ladies-of-grace-adieu-and-other-stories-sig...
https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/the-ladies-of-grace-adieu-and-other-stories-sig...
https://www.foliosociety.com/ca/the-ladies-of-grace-adieu-and-other-stories-sign...

>177 FitzJames: Now that’s more like it, much more palatable! I’ll definitely be picking up a copy. I appreciate them taking the feedback regarding price on board, which I’m sure is what’s happened here. Thank you very much for sharing the good news!

>178 jasminesch: I am glad to be the bearer of such happy tidings!

>177 FitzJames: I've never been able to convince myself to get any signed Folio SE.

The markup over the vanilla SE always feels egregious for what is essentially a signed sticker.

How does Folio even charge additional 160 USD for a 90 USD book with a straight face, on account of said signed sticker alone??

I may have very grudgingly considered a fancy designed and properly bound-in signature page, but this signed sticker business is utterly out of the question for me.

>180 Ibkay: I agree completely. I've never bought a signed edition, or an LE for that matter (LE's admittedly do generally provide extra value, but it's just not enough to justify the high price).

>178 jasminesch: Regrettably it did not last long... now:

£215 | £250 ROW | $300 US | $435 CA

>180 Ibkay: >181 coynedj: I know well they are simply bookplates at best inserted into a SE, but I would still love to own one. At this mark-up tho' I haven't a chance: I could not convince myself either.

>182 FitzJames: That’s rather a joke! Much like they did, I’ve now reversed course and decided against picking up a copy. I’ll bide my time and look out for one on the secondary market in a year or two.

>160 zorg2099: One of my favorite limited editions of all time. Also this standard edition will not have all illustration, Alan Lee's signature and leather binding.

>184 anymos: How do you know the SE will not have all the illustrations the LE has?

>185 assemblyman: LE got 8 illustrations per FS site and on this one in description it states 7 per FS site. Plus to my understanding LE had some decorations on pages that are missing from SE.

>186 anymos: The SE also has 8 illustrations -- the 8th is what Folio refers to as the frontispiece. The SE also has the black & white and title illustrations, which can be seen in the photo gallery on the Folio site.

>187 HonorWulf: Ah okay, I misunderstood. I thought there was some difference. I guess besides the size, leather binding and Alan Lee signature, pretty much 1:1?

>188 anymos: I would assume so -- the SE's derived from the LE's usually have the same inner content. But until we have the book in hand and someone can do a proper comparison, there's always room for some small differences.

Regarding The Ladies of Grace Adieu Signed Edition, we're 140 minutes in with 130 sold and 60 remaining.

The signed Ladies of Grace Adieu is now down to 9 copies. Probably won't last very much longer but anybody who is interested should have had a chance to snag a copy.

2 left.

When they put up the page at £200 for ROW I was slightly tempted to be honest as I don't have a signed book by Clarke who I admire greatly. But the last minute reversion to £250 removed what temptation there was. That's actually more than a signed, letterpress printed and hand-bound collector's edition from Conversation Tree Press (US$285).

I decided to I would put the money towards the CTP's Sea of Tranquillity collector's edition and just get the regular edition of Ladies of Grace Adieu with my next Folio order.

>193 zorg2099: Like you, my courage wavered at £200. I have all four signed firsts of hers (and would like to make it five signed firsts at some point: the pair of variant covers in black and in cream, ignoring the Japanese carmine signed US first/eighth) and the temptation to add this signed first thus was quite something.

But the revised signature premium is such that an unsigned Ladies of Grace Adieu paired with the new Homer and w. shipping included comes to the £250 of the signed version. And that is folly indeed.

>192 Cat_of_Ulthar: And OOS, a v. commendable ~20 hrs.

Tomorrow's the day. What are the first day orders for everyone?

Plenty on my list but first day I think these three:

Starless Sea
Odyssey
Grapes

I'm definitely getting on day 1:

The Ladies of Grace Adieu
The Odyssey (will also add the Iliad from the spring collection which I haven't bought yet).

Herodotus and Atomic bomb are 100% definite buys but I might wait to combine them with some other stuff during the summer sale. And I'm still thinking about the LE for The Wanderer.

My order is placed!

The Ladies of Grace Adieu
The Odyssey
The Iliad
The Wanderer and Other Poems
The Starless Sea

I may pick up The Hidden Life of Trees in the future or just pick up a paperback and read it first to be sure it is worth a reread and fancy edition.

Rough inventory launch counts:

Fahrenheit 451 (~1700 copies)
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (~300 copies)*
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben (~1800 copies)
The Histories by Herodotus (~1500 copies)
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin (~2000 copies)
The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke (~2800 copies)
The Making of the Atomic Bomb (~1500 copies)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (~2600 copies)
The Odyssey (~1750 copies)
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (~2900 copies)
The Wanderer and Other Old-English Poems (~2000 copies)

* Looks like only a partial shipment of The Grapes of Wrath arrived from the printer, so expect some more copies down the line.

>200 HonorWulf: That's interesting - would it be reasonable to speculate that their initial stock volumes are indicative of how well they expect each to sell? Barring Grapes of course. IE they expect Starless Sea, Ladies of Grace and Roger Ackroyd to be the top sellers of this batch?

>201 rubix_cubin: Yes, definitely in terms of the Clarke and Morgenstern books -- their past releases have sold out within six months of release. Agatha Christie is probably a combination of past sales success as well as the desire to keep it in the back catalog for a bit longer since it's part of a series.

>200 HonorWulf: I'm really excited about picking up The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Super relieved it is bound in blocked cloth and not some textured paper (looking at recent titles Station Eleven, Jerusalem).
This is a solid addition to the Folio catalog.

Now working through my Folio wishlist to select additional books to amortize the shipping cost.

The Wanderer for me. Funny, last year I only bought one book from Folio, Frankenstein, another "standardized" version of a Limited Edition. C'mon, Poetic Edda!

>203 Ibkay: It's definitely the sharpest looking offering in this collection.

>196 BreakBeatDJ: I held to my guns and went with The Wanderer, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and The Starless Sea in order to add to my Summer reading stack. Since it was low stock, I also threw in For Your Eyes Only (even though I'm years away from it in my annual Ian Fleming reading). I'll pick-up Herodotus, The Odyssey and The Grapes of Wrath at some point for the shelf, but not in a hurry to revisit them.

>206 HonorWulf: I’m curious what you think the first book to go OOS will be?

The LE Wanderer had 8 color illustrations and also black and white illustrations as well.

The SE lists that it includes the 8 color illustrations but doesn't mention the black and white ones. Does anyone know if they are also included?

>208 Jobasha:

Try looking at the book details on the website.

>208 Jobasha: "First published in 2018 as a Limited Edition, The Wanderer and Other Old-English Poems returns here in a beautifully reimagined form. Bound in pale blue cloth, it features an inset label showcasing Lee's delicate illustration for ‘The Seafarer’. Inside, it retains all the illustrations from the original..."

Nothing interesting for me here, considering the price hikes and that I already have 5! of these books in FS format:

Fahrenheit 451
The Grapes of Wrath
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Histories (myths and legends)
The Odyssey (myths and legends)

I might pick up The Wanderer at some point.

I also don't really understand what they're doing with the Christie books. I know Roger Ackroyd is in public domain, but they've botched their whole aesthetic. Anyone looking for a nicer edition might want to check out Suntup's:

https://suntup.press/the-murder-of-roger-ackroyd/

It's twice the price, but is a limited edition, with much better artwork and an introduction (and letterpress).

Grapes of Wrath got a partial restock. Was at 182 when I checked a few days ago, 397 today. But I wasn't checking daily so no idea how many were sold in the meantime.

>212 zorg2099: I last had Grapes at 130, v. nearly a day ago now.

This advert from the latest FS magazine is a bit of a curiosity, mainly because of the presence of a single title from the older Art Deco-style series, when the recent release of The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd in the newer style might suggest that’s the direction Christie books are heading in.

Personally I prefer the older style as I think it fits better with the era most of the novels are set in, and I had hoped we might see more Christie released in that style. Not sure whether to read anything in to this advert as to the likelihood of that.

>214 MisterTrister: single title from the older Art Deco-style series

that meant it's a Hercule Poirot book as oppose to the other style were it's a standalone novel. i do love that differentiation.. but i don't mind the matchy-matchy direction that much

>215 HamburgerHelper: That distinction doesn’t quite hold up now, though.

The older style books included both Poirot and Marple, but no standalone novels. The newer style, which previously included only standalone novels, now includes one Poirot in The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd, which is one of the Poirots which had been released in the older style.

>216 MisterTrister: exactly why i said i don't mind the new direction (that much)

At least it's not in a completely different style like the two train combo (4.50 From Paddington and The Mystery of the Blue Train) or the hideous original short story collections by The Absolute Worst Folio Illustrator Ever, Christopher Brown...

I'm extremely disappointed. My order from Folio Society summer collection just arrived and 4 out of the 5 books are damaged. They were packed so tightly, all in a row, instead of on top of each other, absolutely squished in the box. The box got bent in at the corners, regardless of paying the Express Delivery, as I usually do, and thus the books and slipcovers also got smashed in. I took pics of the box corners and damaged items and sent it to Folio. They have to stop shoving their books into the same size box, especially for larger orders. If the box gets bumped, so do the books inside, and no matter how much packing you use, if there isn't any room for them to go, they can't absorb that hit. I haven't even had a chance to look inside any of them because I am just staring at all the ruined slipcover and book edges, and I want to cry. I'm losing interest from buying from them, these days. I can't even get excited about them coming anymore. It is more like holding my breath and praying they will be okay, and finding out they are smashed, like the old days.

>219 HearthWitch: Certainly a bummer, but they'll replace the books. It is perplexing, though, I order almost monthly from them, and the books always arrive well packed in oversized boxes and literally inches of honeycomb wrap. I've had some minor damages over the years, but rarely Folio's fault -- usually Fedex throwing the packages down my walkway instead of delivery them to my door (I now have them all shipped to my office, which solved that particular problem). Any sign that the box was tampered with or repackaged? That sometimes happens if it's an international package and has gone through customs inspection.

>220 HonorWulf: Yes, they are replacing the damaged books, but I can't even get excited until I have them in good condition. Glad I grabbed my FS copy of Circe, this morning, to read before diving into this collection. There was plenty of honeycomb wrap, but the books were lined up, side by side, in the box and literally shoved in there. If the box takes a bang, so do the books, as there is no space for them to absorb the hit. FedEx deliveries well around here. They place the box gently, right on the front step, near the door, and as we work from home, we know when it is coming. It wasn't tampered with. It just got banged around from airport to airport. UK to Memphis, TN, then Memphis to Boston, then on to a truck and here. Sigh.

>221 HearthWitch: The side-by-side thing is also bizarre. I can't remember that happening before myself. Did it come with a "packed by" slip? Perhaps it was someone new...

>222 HonorWulf: Last Autumn I too received a box of 3 books packed vertically rather than laid flat, presumably to make them fit into a smaller box. Luckily they were all ok, but it did strike me that they could be more vulnerable to damage in transit packed like that. That was the first time in many orders over many years.

>223 Elysium72: Yikes! Fortunately, it doesn't sound like a regular occurrence, but I'll be on the lookout. Completely unrelated, now that I ship to my office to reduce damages, my office mates have become enthralled with the books and look forward to the unboxings :)

>222 HonorWulf: Yes, and they are the same one who packed my order last time, I believe, that also got damaged. I explained it in detail, as to why I felt it happened. They listened when they replaced the last batch of damaged books, but went right back to their poor packaging choices anyway.

>225 HearthWitch: Fortunately, my package (4 books) arrived today, all packed horizontally and without any damage. The box itself took a beating though, with damage on two sides, but the books themselves arrived unharmed. Record time, too -- usually takes 2-3 weeks, but only 8 days this time around.

The Wanderer was the one I was looking most forward to and it lives up to expectations, as well as The Ladies of Grace Adieu, which will look lovely next to Jonathan Strange. But The Starless Sea is the real winner from a production standpoint -- huge, beautiful looking book and slip. The last one was the low stock For Your Eyes Only, which, like all of the Bond novels, is a solid effort.

>226 HonorWulf: My replacement books arrived today. They were packed vertically and arrived in perfect condition. Donating the damaged books to a senior center my father lived in.

Now I can enjoy my books and start reading them, after I finish my copy of FS Circe! It is going to be a Greek Mythology summer!

>227 HearthWitch: Good to hear! My reading pile is pretty stacked right now, so most of these new ones will have to wait until Fall.

>226 HonorWulf: Good to hear The Starless Sea impresses. If you happen to also have Folio's The Night Circus on hand, how does it compare in overall look and feel? I assume the trim size is identical so they form a matching set.

I'll be getting Folio's Starless Sea later in the year; really enjoyed the quality of Morgenstern's writing in Night Circus.

>229 Ibkay: Not only the same form factor, but completely matching designs down to the spine. Together, they basically form a two-volume set on the shelf.

(deleted -- moved to Spring Collection thread)