One of the things I look forward to each December is the Harvard University Press book sale. I appreciate all sales from book publishers who publish high quality works, but the Harvard sale helps me to continue a completely barking mad project I began a few years ago: reading all the Loeb Classical Library, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, and I Tatti Renaissance Library volumes in order of publication. As I said – utter madness.
A ghostly remnant of my failed dream of becoming a classics scholar, this impossible-to-complete reading project is my way of continuing my studies in a field of study that I very much love and have since I was a boy. I read each series in turn, with the caveat that I read two Loeb volumes, followed by one from the Dumbarton Oaks series, one from the I Tatti series, and then back again for two more Loebs. I double-up on the Loebs as the series is so much older and contains hundreds more volumes than the two more recently established ones.
Thus, each year, I take advantage of this sale to add to the collection of works I plan to one day read. This year, I added two Loeb, two Dumbarton Oaks, and and two I Tatti volumes – each purchased at the 30% discount offered by the sale – to my library.
And should you ask me what this has to do with natural history, I would point out that these series span a wide range of subjects, including natural philosophy. Think of the many volumes of Aristotle that treat of natural philosophy, the monumental Natural History of Pliny the Elder, and now, unfortunately, lesser known works such as Calcidius’ On Plato’s Timaeus, as well as foundational early medical writings of Galen and the Hippocratic corpus.
Whether it be for works of early natural philosophy, more recent works of natural history, or any of the vast range of other subjects represented in the catalog of the Press, this present sale is a superb opportunity to add books from one of the world’s finest publishers to your library.
