The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1 (Packaged with Media Companion)

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Summary: The Norton Anthology: perfect for the brains or the brawn
Review: The brainy can read it and the brawny can use it for weightlifting! If you're not familiar with Norton anthologies, they basically offer a selection of the most important literature of a given time period or category, with scholarly overviews to put everything into context. Because of this bounteous offering, they're also probably the heaviest books you'll ever own. A lot of college profs use these as the primary texts in English Lit courses, and why not? Just about every noteworthy author is included and they're less expensive than buying a separate book for each of their works. This particular anthology, Norton's English Literature Volume 1, starts with the Middle Ages and goes up until 1785, with Volume 2 presumably picking up where this one leaves off. There's a lot of the Great Works here, things like Beowulf, selections from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Spenser's Faerie Queene, some of Shakespeare's sonnets and two of his plays (Twelfth Night, King Lear), Milton's Paradise Lost, Swift's Gulliver's Travels, and waaaay more.

The anthology also comes with a media companion. A mere two years ago this was CD audio of people doing readings from some of the works, but now, apparently, besides the audio the lucky ducks get a CD-ROM with lots of neat stuff on it, such as visual arts, music, and access to Norton's online resources.

Here's a helpful tip for all you students: this book is HUGE, almost 3000 pages, and weighs quite a few pounds. I suggest you cut it up into 3 or 4 separate sections (just use a boxcutter or scissors along the spine); the smaller size makes reading easier and it's more portable. Of course if you do this you can't resell the anthology, but I think the convenience of not having to carry the heavy book around all day is soooo worth it.