My Penguin Modern Classics Collection

[@LB-fg2ph]

I love that your dads books are now in your collection. It’s like the life of the book has come full circle. I bet he would be so proud of you x

[@JeansThoughts]

Thank you!

[@hayleyc5594]

Please do a vintage classics collection. The regular red spine ones plus some of their additional special collections.

[@levitybooks3952]

Penguin Modern Classics are my favourite series, I used to read almost entirely those when I was in the UK and liked the white spine design, I never knew they'd resdesigned them! Great collection, I need to work on starting to build my own.

[@stefannidomingos7884]

Paulo Freire's work is so important. As a Brazilian, I love when more people discover his ideas! These editions are lovely. Here we only got the normal 🐧 editions.

[@KhaledKhaled-wt9wd]

I discovered your channel a few days ago, and i have to say i'm not disappointed. Besides litterature; being a non-native (from Algeria) english speaker, listening to you really helps me getting used to scottish tongue. So thank you for all that.

[@JeansThoughts]

Oh I’m so pleased - thanks for watching!

[@ReadingNymph]

I have just been watching all your classic videos 😅 I set a goal to read more classics this year and have now falling in love, your videos are great for recommendations so thankyou!

[@WarinPartita6]

Thanks, Jean.​ You're​ so​ lucky​ to​ have​ a​ well​-read​ dad.​ (May​ he​ rest​ in​ peace.)​

[@LifeLessonsFromBooks]

Love love love the modern classics! You've got a great selection there.... happy reading!

[@MissTasseled]

I am obsessed with Penguin Modern Classics. I wasn't sure about the recent redesign at first, but the two modern variants look nice together, so it grew on me. I am trying to create a collection of my own, but I have to import them all from the UK.

[@sashahawkins]

Love that you showed the earlier versions of these editions. I have quite a few of them from secondhand bookstores and they are quite lovely. Doubly great that a lot of them came from your dad! :) Also, this is the first time I've heard of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya but now I definitely wanna read her books!

[@milenaparotti2907]

Every time I watch your videos my Goodreads "Want To Read" folder gets bigger 😂 (Just one thing, the accent in "Italo" goes on the first letter!)

[@prrari22]

Love this! Have been binging many collections videos lately so this timing is just perfectt

[@JeansThoughts]

They’re so satisfying right!? Aha

[@rosem.8781]

I loove the new design for the Modern Classics!! Minimalist yet colourful and artistic, I'm such a big fan! Love this collection, definitely some titles I've never heard and that will look into xx

[@katietatey]

I love love love collection videos! Thank you for sharing! :)

[@jamgart6880]

Loved this… makes me want to add to my tbr list (which is already out of hand) but I like that I can get introduced to some books and authors I hadn’t thought about before x

[@Lilpandaa96]

Thanks for the video! You have inspired me to read some classical literature - already ordered odyssey and illiad 😅 Would love to see more of these vids! Happy holidays from Latvia✨

[@JeansThoughts]

Aw I’m so happy I hope you enjoy them!

[@BaileeWalsh]

The Penguin Modern Classics line is my favorite! I used to not be a fan of the newest designs, but they've definitely grown on me. I just really liked the simple and classy look of the use of white and silver spines and text. I love collection videos, so I'm up for any you want to do or get requests for!

[@insomnia-city504]

André Gide is a french writer, his most famous work is called "les faux monnayeurs" or "the counterfeiters" !

[@KeiraAndGeo]

those penguin modern classics are really elegant designs. Love them all, but the turquoise spines are my favorite! Lovely collection you own. I hope you get around to reading more Steinbeck, I enjoyed his writing a lot :) but have fun with all your unread ones from this video of course!!

[@braincabbage]

I love Penguin Modern Classics, especially the white ones (maybe because they were some of the first classics I bought so there's some nostalgia) but I like the new designs, too. I think Hangsaman has my favourite cover, I love the photograph and that photographer's work in general

[@ofgodzeus]

YES! more. collections. videos.

[@claudiaf.9132]

Hi! I'm an Italian follower of yours and it's so nice to hear you talk about Italo Calvino. He's one of the most important writers from Italy 😍

[@JeansThoughts]

He is awesome!

[@TiffWaffles]

I want to read more modern classics, but have so many books that I need to read that I haven't looked into them as much. I do have some that were published by Arcturus Publishing LTD, though I am not sure how you feel about that publishing company. I want the Penguin modern classics so I might look into them more, I have a few titles on my wishlist, so I will see if I can find them. Your collection is lovely! I like how you have included your dad's books into your collection and I imagine that they mean a lot to you.

[@mymessynotebook2207]

I’d love to see your other collections!!

[@rynb4868]

You are putting out the content I NEED, bless you 🙏

[@JeansThoughts]

This makes me ridiculously happy aha.

[@natalyaedwards6258]

Paolo Freire insp aspects of the cultural / education side of the Black Consciousness movement in South Africa in the fight against apartheid in 1970s - which obvs feeds into the BLM movement today. I havent read his book but i did my history diss on that movement!! His work sounds like it had such a widespread and lasting impact on modern society & our understanding of education i defs need to give it a read thank god for me finding your vid to remind me of Freire’s existence !!

[@Emmie4497]

Really enjoyed this video... lots of new titles here to add to my TBR! Would love to see more videos like this please :)

[@21vgkoab]

Sunset Song is my favourite book of all time. Love how it is written, it's amazing.

[@JeansThoughts]

Yay glad to be around more sunset song appreciators ;)

[@nathalielaine306]

I love the penguin modern classics designs! Definitely want to try Sunset Song

[@SantReads]

YES PLEASE to more of this. I've discovered Shirley Jackson this year and have been absolutely blown away by her. What book of hers do you think I should read next? I read Dark Tales and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I'm a bit of a wimp, so not planning on reading Haunting of Hill House just yet.

[@JeansThoughts]

I would say that the Haunting of Hill House isn't actually very scary - definitely no scarier than We Have Always Lived in the Castle I'd say. It's completely different to the show if you've seen that ^_^.

[@simpleplanfan27]

Yeah, haunting of hill house isn’t scary at all, it just has supernatural elements.

[@Maria_Efe]

I've only read a few short stories by Jorge Luis Borges in my Spanish class and I've always meant to read more by him; he's considered one of the giants of Latin American literature! I would definitely love to see more videos of your book collections! 😊

[@libraryofjonathan]

I am wanting to start getting the modern classics editions. I have a good bit of Everyman's Library Editions currently. Great video!

[@sophieadventures3157]

What a lovely collection. I've read half of 1984 and keep meaning to finish it! I'm finishing the year by reading Maya Goodfellows Hostile Environment to tie in with a peice of work I have due in January for my MSc

[@OrdenJust]

Why say you have read half of 1984? Why not just say you've read 992?

[@Willowandchap]

Loved this, please film more collection videos 😊

[@rynb4868]

AH double commenting to say I've been meaning to pick up Pedagogy of the Oppresed because Audre Lorde referenced it in Sister Outsider, one for 2021 definitely

[@karenmiddlebrook8215]

I love the sound of Why read the classics, I love essay collections

[@wendyryan1618]

This was a lovely video and made me hunt out my own Penguin Modern Classics editions. I have some grey-green coloured ones from the seventies as well as the more recent ones. If you want to tip your toes into Labyrinths by Borges, you might enjoy the House of Asterion which is based on a Greek myth.

[@PostBlueHaze]

Hi Jean, happy new year! I have a question, I recently got into Greek Myths and my favourite is Medusa (basic bitch, I know), as the most knowledgable person on the matter here, is there a book about her (fiction or non) that you would recommend?

[@panikiczcock2891]

I love "Ice". It's very surreal, sort of dystopia about a climate crisis.

[@inanimatecarbongod]

I happened to have one of those silver spine editions in front of me (Wells' Short History of the World), which I checked and it claims to have been printed in 2000. I don't know exactly when they started that design but I do recall it being around that time. Also, there was a variant I've only ever seen a few examples of, the slightly bigger trade paperback size which had the author name and title on an orange spine with the Penguin logo and catalogue number in white boxes. I've got one (Malcolm Lowry's Ultramarine) and I've only seen I think two others, one of which was (if I remember rightly) the infamous "corrected" edition of Joyce's Ulysses. My copy of the Lowry book says it was printed in 1987, so this must've been an 80s thing... I don't recall any consistency of design with those ones like you get with their older and later modern classic editions.

[@epihead9196]

I have a collection of Evelyn Waugh novels with the silver spines, from 2001 so I think 2000 is probably accurate :)

[@High_101]

you talk. i fall in love with Scotland

[@60ritikanand69]

I like maple and fingerprint classics more. They are dirt cheap and come with great designs, former with modernized and latter with vintage. Don't know if they are available internationally.

[@AnniesBookNook]

lovely collection!

[@chiyapink7607]

I liked the design with the white spines but getting my hands on those ist pretty hard, since I'm not from an english speaking country and live in a small city. So there are rarely any available used copies

[@chak3237]

I aspire to have a collection like yours 😩😌

[@racheldemain1940]

Penguin black classics please asost of my Classics collection are in this cover and I have a Penguin in my Book Nook called Mr. Darcy for obvious reasons! 🐧

[@GuiltyFeat]

Duck egg blue? Pale mint green, surely Love this, thanks.

[@JeansThoughts]

I don't know google depicts them very similarly... aha I'm sticking with my original guess ;).

[@GuiltyFeat]

@@JeansThoughts OK, now I had to go and look it up to see what the truth was. A blog post on Penguin's site refers to the colour as "eau de nil" (www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2017/penguin-modern-classics-design-part-3.html). Which was not helpful. Until I worked out that "eau de nil" means "water of the Nile". Which was still not terribly helpful. The Paris Review describes eau de nil as "a light-greenish hue, more saturated than celadon, less gray than sage. It has tan undertones and a cool bluish cast. It is, confusingly, an entirely different color from Nile green." So that's nice. www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/02/13/eau-de-nil-light-green-color-egypt-obsessed-europe/ I'm going to lie down now and have a long think about what I've done here. Cheers.

[@kelviannaepperson3677]

I have the diary of Anne Frank and the outsiders from penguin books publisher

[@caseyisbooked6752]

The plague was a great and beautifully written (albeit depressing) book, I do recommend reading it. Just maybe wait until the pandemic is over, because the lockdown experience and pandemic stressers are very paralleled to what we are living through now.

[@JeansThoughts]

Aha thank you I will definitely wait!

[@NormanF62]

Most of these have been incorporated into the Penguin Classics and I think the traditional black design works well. Why not have a single classics series?

[@JeansThoughts]

I mean at their absolute basic these collections literally just exist as marketing tools.

[@caityc1837]

Not gonna lie, I was really disappointed with the most recent change. I'm petty so won't be buying them anymore for my collection not to match 😂 Glad you don't mind though, nice video!

[@audcatz]

Not book related...but where is that cardigan from? I covet it every time you wear it in a video (you may have said in a different video...bu I can't remember)

[@JeansThoughts]

Aha it’s from marks and Spencer’s 😁

[@karenmiddlebrook8215]

M&S hence its durability. I live overseas but miss M&S so much!

[@Xenu]

Borges' "Labyrinths" has been never stopped being one of my favorite books since I first read it as a teenager. 20th century Latin America produced so many amazing writers and Borges was one of the greatest, imo. "Funes the Memorious" and "The Immortal" are my favorite stories in that collection. I re-read them often and always get something new out of them.

[@mikejones1565]

Calvino, yes, especially "Difficult Loves". My favorite Penguin classic is Moby-Dick. That book's a creeper.

[@Singhaditi1105]

Does anyone know why the books have different spine

[@JeansThoughts]

I mentioned in the video but it's because penguin has revamped the line a few times - so there are a few different eras where they change the range and design.

[@evangelinecantlemere6266]

Stanisław Lem is unreadable in polish. He wrote in one of those heavy, classical styles - weird order of words in a sentence and over all it's rather difficult to read, solely because of his writing style. Unfortunately lots of older polish writers are heavily influenced by him, with Andrzej Sapkowski (author of the Witcher) being the most known example. Lem's writing style caused a few decades long period of polish fantasy and scifi books being unreadable and therefore not read by polish society. Only for about twenty/thirty years polish books have gotten better, due to the influence of translated books - polish school of translation does have a rather pleasant style. Despite it, series like The Witcher are more read in English than in Polish - I, myself, know some people who, being polish, have read The Witcher in English.

[@Kimberton149]

This is so interesting. I always wonder when books are translated how they are different to the original. I have some short stories by Stanisław Lem I've been meaning to read. It will be interesting to see how they've been translated to English

[@harshasingh5286]

do all the collections that u hv

[@der-buchhandel]

Bookstore Berlin Germany