Library In A Box

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Tuesday, May 24, 2005
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Years ago I spotted a small traveling library at an antiquarian bookshop. The case was covered in blue silk, a bit worse for wear, and the flaps opened to reveal several rows of slender volumes. One shelf held poetry, another history, and another philosophy. I could imagine some nineteenth century gentleman taking the library with him while traveling by carriage. After all, one never knows what sort of reading one might like to do while abroad. The miniaturized library captured my imagination, but it was well outside my price range.

Today, of course, we can load a library of e-books on a handheld computer and take a good part of the Western tradition with us when we travel. But there's something to be said for a library that doesn't have to be plugged in. That's why the new slipcased set of Penguin 70s is at the top of my wish list.

A decade ago, Penguin celebrated its sixtieth anniversary by publishing a variety of sixty-page booklets. In the UK, they sold for 60p and were dubbed "Penguin 60s." I have a stack of them on my shelf. They're perfect for those times when you want to slip a book in your pocket and go. I have fond memories of toting Henry James' "The Lesson of the Master" around in my back pocket. Now, to celebrate its seventieth, Penguin has released a set of seventy booklets -- Penguin 70s!

In addition to that, they've launched what is now my favorite website: a Flash version of the slipcased set that lets you choose a title, pull it out of the case, flip it over to read the back cover, and skim and excerpt. I've spent far more time than I'd like to admit doing precisely this. In less than two weeks, I'll be traveling myself, criss-crossing the Midwest and heading East with Worldview Academy. Now, wouldn't it be splendid to take a traveling library of my own along? I think so. But it's not me that I have to convince.