I actually like the opinionated curation and how the selection stretches well into the 20th century. I also appreciate that there are any women at all, and any non-western books. the great conversation now is not the one the dead white guys were having, mid-19th c.
I appreciated each book being short, which meant that I can do an incredibly broad survey over the canon and then go back to authors that I turn out to unexpectedly enjoy. the other list has like a dozen authors?
the Britannic list kind of sounds like a genuine slog! I would get like three hundred pages in and then give up for good. with the Penguin series I know that if I dislike a book, it’ll be over with in a hundred pages. And the books are generally actually good reading.
yep, several reasons:
I actually like the opinionated curation and how the selection stretches well into the 20th century. I also appreciate that there are any women at all, and any non-western books. the great conversation now is not the one the dead white guys were having, mid-19th c.
I appreciated each book being short, which meant that I can do an incredibly broad survey over the canon and then go back to authors that I turn out to unexpectedly enjoy. the other list has like a dozen authors?
the Britannic list kind of sounds like a genuine slog! I would get like three hundred pages in and then give up for good. with the Penguin series I know that if I dislike a book, it’ll be over with in a hundred pages. And the books are generally actually good reading.