(Le Mie passioni, Italian translation of “my passions,” is a an occasional series of things I really, really love.)
Penguin Books
This is not a librarian thing, an English major thing or an archivist or design thing: It’s simply just a Lisa-thing. The lust began in my youth but became personified in 2005 when Amazon.com started selling the complete Penguin Classics collection for a mere $8,000 USD (now pricing at $13,000 USD and change). Nearly 1100 titles of the greatest works of literature – ever in the history of the written word. Instant library, beautiful editions and awesome editors and translators.
Then, Penguin started outdoing themselves by presenting the classics (i.e. Jane Austen, Ian Fleming and F. Scott Fitzgerald) reworked with new cover designs by leading designers, releasing additional classics to bring the “complete library” up to 1300+ titles, introducing the deluxe classics, reworking their Great Food series, and of course, they have a fantastic backlist of contemporary titles. Squee! In addition, Penguin gets and uses social media with gusto: they are on the Facebooks, Twitters, RSS feeds galore and my favs, Penguin podcast and Penguin Classics podcast; Penguin just does so many things with such passion and thoroughness, that if it is wrong to love a publisher so hard, then, I just don’t ever want to be right.
