On Classics and Opportunists

I got an email with the recommended reading list for rising 9th graders from the online academy we're using for eldest's high school career last night. It's a good list. If I can get him to read even a quarter of them, I'll call it a win. (None of this is required - they're having a summer reading competition and while I know he doesn't care about that, I'm all for finding ways to get him to read something more than the most recent Game Informer magazine. Which hey, it's still reading. But also.)

(I may not have told him it's not required. My bad. I'll fix that...in September.)

Anyway, looking over the list, he's agreed to start with All Quiet on the Western Front and Animal Farm. I believe he'll enjoy both, honestly.

I headed over to the Zon and...

What in the ever living is happening with classics? Can anyone and their underfed West Virginia cousin just throw a classic up with a "cover" now and make a quick buck?

I get that copyrights expire and yadda yadda. But seriously, we need someone to step in and regulate the distribution of classic literature. Because I don't trust Bubba's Animal Farm edition. Like who's to say it actually contains the text that Orwell intended?

I am all for independent publication of people's own stories (obviously as this is what I do) - but the "slap a cover on it and copy in Jane Austen and call it Pride and Prejudice" seems wrong on so many levels.

At the end of the day, since I couldn't decide which might be "official" versions of said texts, I went ahead and put them on hold at the library. I'll deal with fines if I have to because he's pokey about reading them. At least I know the library copy should contain the actual book in question.

The other alternative was Barnes & Noble. And had I not been able to grab them from the local library branch, I absolutely would've done that. But that would likely have been a more expensive foray than just the two books in question.