Favorite Volume

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Favorite Volume

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1kcshankd
Feb. 17, 2014, 3:33 pm

To try to cling to the increased traffic, which is your favorite volume?

2kcshankd
Feb. 17, 2014, 3:38 pm

Myself, I would have to choose Grant's Memoirs. I received it very early in my subscription, and though interested in U. S. History, would have never have chosen it. I dove in anyway, and was very pleasantly surprised. The first half covers his early stint in the Army during the Mexican War, and was all new to me. The Civil War section rests neatly with Sherman, Lincoln, and the new Civil War series - I eventually also tackled Foote's three volume set.

3randomengine
Feb. 17, 2014, 4:16 pm

Favorite volume I own personally or favorite volume LoA publishes that I'd love to own, or both?

This is so hard...there is so much to favorite...

I do love the historical, first-source, chronologies. Of those I have Debate on the Constitution, American Revolution, and The War of 1812. It is really hard to pick one. I just love this format. Even the fictional anthologies like American Fantastic Tales and Science Fiction of the 1950s. They transport me to a place and time and I learn so much about the genre and the time periods.

I am just an LoA junkie, honestly, I love it all.

4LesMiserables
Feb. 17, 2014, 4:30 pm

Muir so far.

5kcshankd
Feb. 17, 2014, 4:30 pm

I agree, probably should have asked 'Most surprising, the selection you enjoyed despite not thinking you would'

I would never have selected Grant during my first year or two of subscribing, but enjoyed it immensely.

6LesMiserables
Feb. 17, 2014, 4:32 pm

I was surprised that I enjoyed Steinbeck so much. I mean I knew he was good, but now understand his genius.

7Django6924
Feb. 17, 2014, 4:53 pm

It was the Grant volumes which persuaded me to join, as I had often heard that they marked the finest written work of any US President after Lincoln, and because I have always been fascinated by the history of the War Between the States.

That said, my favorite volume is the Flannery O'Connor volume, as it was a godsend finding all her important fiction collected in one convenient and beautifully produced volume. (Obviously I'm not unique in my choice as this has always been on LOA's "Best Seller" list.

8brother_salvatore
Feb. 17, 2014, 5:15 pm

One I've been surprised with lately is the Bernard Malamud volumes. I was lukewarm when I added these to my subscription, but started reading the short stories and chronology, and have been quite taken with them.

Probalby my favorite volumes would have to be the Faulkner set.

9Podras.
Feb. 20, 2014, 2:46 am

Favorite for me depends on genre because I respond in different ways.

--For history/memoirs, Grant without hesitation.
--For travel, Twain's Mississippi Writings for "Life on the Mississippi."
--For poetry, Longfellow (poetry is difficult for me, but Longfellow's resonates). Frost is my favorite poet because of four specific titles, but the criteria was favorite "volume."
--For natural history, Muir.
--For philosophy/essays, Thoreau for "Walden."
...

However, favorite favorite? He's got stiff competition, but Faulkner: Novels 1936-1940 for "Absalom, Absalom." His writing style requires ones focused attention but is extremely rewarding. As for story, it more than any other of work I know epitomizes Faulkner's own quote (elsewhere) that, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

10robertla
Feb. 24, 2014, 6:09 pm

Emerson's journals in 2 volumes are simultaneously my most and least favorite volumes --

-- Most favorite because reading the journals is an inspiration like reading the best of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Montaigne, Leopardi -- all literary minds of the very first rank.

Emerson is life-affirming, more so than any religion I know, cf. famous quote by Nietzsche about Emerson - "Emerson is a person who lives instinctively on ambrosia - and leaves everything indigestible on his plate."

-- Least favorite because it is an undying everlasting outrage that LOA published only a 2-vol selected edition instead of a 5-vol complete edition, esp. when they're wasting volumes publishing absolute rubbish like Kerouac (3 vols) and noir (7 vols and counting).

To get the complete journals, you still must pay up a small fortune for the Harvard UP set or buy a library scan reprint that has someone else's annotations and underlinings in it.

12CurrerBell
Bearbeitet: Mrz. 7, 2014, 9:45 pm

Well, of course there's the Henry James volumes. Too bad they're not yet complete!

For just a single volume, I think I might choose Flannery O'Connor. It seems to be about as complete as you could want (which is doable considering O'Connor's early death and her consequently limited canon).

For most disappointing, it's much easier: Sarah Orne Jewett far and away. I say that because I consider Jewett the most underrated of all American writers, and I have a particular interest in Maine literature. There's no way Jewett should possibly have been condensed into a single volume (any more than W.E.B. Du Bois should have), there's so much missing, and I think Jewett is entitled to a set as complete as Willa Cather's.

Fortunately, in the case of Jewett, we do have Professor Terry Heller's Sarah Orne Jewett Text Project on the Coe College website.

ETA: Oh, and for my "most awaited": the upcoming (or at least seemingly promised) second volume of Shirley Jackson, whenever LoA gets around to it (and I'm hoping they get Joyce Carol Oates as the editor again, because what-to-include won't be as easy in the second volume as in the first). And I'll definitely be getting the second Louisa May Alcott volume coming out in September.

13Dr_Flanders
Okt. 4, 2017, 2:41 pm

>12 CurrerBell: I realize that I am way late to the party on this one, but is there confirmation somewhere that the LOA plans a second volume dedicated to Shirley Jackson?

14LesMiserables
Okt. 4, 2017, 6:23 pm

>12 CurrerBell:

I think complete now? (3.5 years on)

15Dr_Flanders
Okt. 4, 2017, 6:51 pm

>14 LesMiserables:

I don't know, but it seems to me like the existing volume certainly hit the most well regarded works, and included material from the beginning and the end of her bibliography. I don't guess that is a conclusive indication that they only planned one volume, but that would be the way I leaned, absent any evidence to the contrary.

16LesMiserables
Okt. 4, 2017, 6:53 pm

>15 Dr_Flanders:

Oh sorry. I was referring to the Henry James' volumes.

17Dr_Flanders
Okt. 4, 2017, 6:57 pm

>16 LesMiserables:

My mistake. That makes a lot more sense!

18LesMiserables
Okt. 4, 2017, 7:11 pm

>17 Dr_Flanders:

Not at all. I usually copy and paste, that to which I am responding to, to avoid confusion.

Anyway, regarding >12 CurrerBell: I'm reminded to fish out FO and do some overdue reading!

19DCloyceSmith
Bearbeitet: Okt. 5, 2017, 1:27 pm

>13 Dr_Flanders:

We do hope to publish a second volume of Shirley Jackson. We agreed to postpone our plans, however, because for her centennial Jackson's publisher had planned reissues of all her novels, a volume of unpublished material, and the Ruth Franklin biography.

David

20elenchus
Okt. 5, 2017, 10:52 am

>19 DCloyceSmith:

Great to get this confirmation, David.

21Dr_Flanders
Okt. 5, 2017, 11:17 am

>19 DCloyceSmith:

Yes. Thank you for confirming. I am happy to hear it.

22Podras.
Okt. 5, 2017, 11:23 am

>19 DCloyceSmith: That's very good news, David. Is there any chance of learning approximately when the second volume will be published? Jackson's centennial was last December.

23DCloyceSmith
Bearbeitet: Okt. 5, 2017, 1:47 pm

>22 Podras.:

It's open-ended at this point, since we'd still need to finalize a deal with the rightsholders.

--David

24Podras.
Okt. 5, 2017, 5:41 pm

>23 DCloyceSmith: Thanks, David. Whenever it comes, I'll be ready. :-)

25Truett
Bearbeitet: Okt. 19, 2017, 7:33 am

Arrgh! Sorry, misread the title (saw future instead of favourite)
because I was in too big a hurry to put on the reading glasses!
:) (I deleted the post and pasted it I the correct discussion)

26Dr_Flanders
Okt. 27, 2017, 11:58 am

>6 LesMiserables:

I am with you on Steinbeck. I took the Steinbeck introductory offer years ago, and allowed the books to sit on my shelf for years before finally deciding to work my way through them.

I recently read the Steinbeck volume including his earliest works, which included The Pastures of Heaven, To a God Unknown, Tortilla Flat, In Dubious Battle and Of Mice and Men. Of Mice and Men was the only one of these works I was familiar with from the outset, having read it in high school. I was particularly surprised by To a God Unknown... I am still thinking about it months later. I also had forgotten how affecting Of Mice and Men can be. I am looking forward to digging into the next Steinbeck volume.

27elenchus
Bearbeitet: Okt. 27, 2017, 1:05 pm

So far I'd say my favourite is the Frederick Law Olmsted volume, Writings on Landscape, Culture, and Society.

I'm about halfway through, and for me not a quick read by any means. But I can say with confidence it's very unlikely I would have picked up any Olmsted writing had LOA not published this volume, and promoted it so well. For one thing, most of the selections are not published publicly apart from the LOA volume, and for another the selection is wonderful to have at hand. There's so much more than public landscaping, too, though the landscaping ideas were what drew me to the book. One example is his commentary on race relations (and he doesn't always come out on the admirable side, either).

28kcshankd
Okt. 27, 2017, 6:34 pm

Since I started this thread, the most surprising volumes I've read that I greatly enjoyed were the Henry Adams histories of the Jefferson and Madison administrations. Here my little LT review, that still stands up I think:

I have been chewing on these volumes - including the History of the Jefferson Administration - for some time, since before I started grad school.

A few words won't do nearly 3000 pages justice, but suffice it to say that I am grateful that I working through these concurrent with the 2010 elections, and the upcoming Bicentennial of the Second War with Britain - the War of 1812.

The political issues that I find so riveting are timeless, and the continued dialogue is part of the American experience. The President has been reviled by the 'out' party in every instance since Washington - that is, the advent of parties.

The basic arguments remain the same as well, an expansive view of federal power versus one limited by state sovereignty. What is fascinating is that the 'sides' have seamlessly switched arguments with the outcome of each election.

One further point of interest is how much Madison and Hamilton came to disagree over what they had wrought and argued for in the Federalist. By the turn of the century Madison has retreated back to the Virginia school, a Jefferson protege.

If you have a spare year or three, and are interested in politics, than these are well worth the time invested.

29rkramden
Bearbeitet: Jan. 30, 2020, 11:51 am

Wake up little thread.
My favorite is #2 Hawthorne: Tales and Sketches. Read these to my children when they were young. They are often brought up in conversation to this day.

30Dr_Flanders
Jan. 30, 2020, 9:39 pm

>29 rkramden: I just started reading Hawthorne: Tales and Sketches. I'm only about 9 stories or 90 pages in, but its been fun so far. I've never really read any Hawthorne before this one, so I think I might be in for a treat.