Collecting the Garish, collecting the Few, and foregoing the Many

In looking for a copy for The Postman Always Rings Twice I stumbled on an Orion Series of paperback books published in 2005: The Read A Great Movie books. I'm thinking there's 8 of these, but I can't be sure as I can't seem to find any information on them.

I can't find any pictures of any of the spines as nobody seems to have thought it worth of any merit to do so, but I did find one picture of the backflap for The Postman Always Rings Twice.

I'm pretty sure most of the public would find these books atrocious to look at, and I only half agree.

Because there's an eclectic aesthetic here that quite appeals to me. The differing title fonts, different colours mirror the Terror 8's. But with more all-round garishness as the Terror 8 strike a pretty picture as they're unified in their black covers.

The differing colour is something that's a staple in a lot of collections. And I've been eyeing quite a few over the years, but recently there's one that I thought looked quite gorgeous: The hardback The Oxford's World's Classics collection. As of this time there's only 13 of them, with 10 of them out now.

You have your usual Russian classics from Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Though as they don't have the Pevear and Volokhonsky translations, even if I should buy these, these won't be the copies I'll be reading. If you're interested in reading why: The Art of Translation no 4, The Paris Review.

You have your oldest literature type stuff, The mabinogion, the Odyssey and the Illiad, which, to be honest I've never been interested in as they seemed too stuffy (not to mention that I'm still not done reading Paradise Lost, but I promise that one will get seriously worked on this year). Although I am aware that the Mabinogion was adapted by Evangeline Walton in an attempt to modernise it for modern audiences. And as that one's included in the Fantasy Masterworks series, it's highly unlikely I'll be reading this copy then too (if I should decide to purchase).

Then you have the ones that made me find these lovely beauties, (I was browsing for a copy of The Great God Pan).

I must say, of the lot, these are very much the most striking.

Together with this one, which has a certain melancholy allure, both in content and cover.

There seems to have gone a lot of work into this one; Poetry of the First World War

Here's the obligatory Austen, which, shame on me, I've also not read.

And here is the rest of 'em, because why not, I've done 'em all now.

I particularly like the shades on the brain there.

And it's these last two that are yet to come out this year, together with the Mabinogion.

Not a too fast publication schedule with the earliest publication in october of 2016.

There's still the question of how this all would look on the shelf.

Shamelessly nabbed from... where-ever.

I'll likely not buy any of these, and this post is more an effort of writing off the desire to buy these editions rather than taking a genuine look at their merits.

At any rate there's a lot of these types of collections I've been eyeing, all shamelessly garish, with wildly contrasting colours, with minimal art and (only sometimes) tasteful lettering.

From the cheap as ass Wordsworth tales of Mystery and Supernatural series,
  which seems to come in only four colours, blue, grey, orangey and yellow (and are there really only 30 of these...? Hmmmmm....).

And as for cheap as ass? With a rough calculation, depending on availability of course, the whole collection (if that IS indeed 30, and forgive me if I'm off on any of this; it IS late) will put you out of... somewhere under 135 euros (HMMMMMM.....).

To Gollancz's Michael Moorcock collection,

   which I'm one away from completing (so I'm not going to share pictures of that one until it's done).

or the Fantasy Masterworks collection, the Barnes and Nobles Leatherbounds (Oh god, rrrrrrrrr...) or even the Penguin Classics Hardback Collection, the temptation to start collecting any of these is always there. Seriously, look at these lovely beauties from the Penguin Hardbacks which are less minimalistic but there's usually only one motif happening anyway:

But for every gorgeous-looking one of these, there's an equally ugly one.

And there are a lot of these...and at one point they do go out of stock, you know.

I've actually read this beast of a novel.

And to complete any collection of classics you'll have to read dozens and dozens of works you might have no interest in reading. So, so far, I've held off on collecting pretty much all of these. 

And it's for this precise reason, that Orion/Gollancz and their Terror 8 and their Ultimate Fantasies and Future Classics are so perfect for me. With constraining themselves to a one-digit number, even with including the starting novel of a series or two, collecting and more importantly, reading these collections become achievable and something to strive towards.

...

Although...

Come to think about it...

I did buy the Count of Monte Cristo as a Barnes and Nobles Hardback, didn't I?

...

No, shut up, I didn't. I'm going to bed;

No, I said shut up! And go away, I'm trying to sleep.