The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition (Earthsea Cycle) Hardcover – Illustrated, October 30, 2018

This book will keep you out of trouble for a long time. Great stories which I somehow missed in my youth.The book itself is a treasure you will want to keep in the family library.

We bought this as a sort of Hail Mary to read to our children, and they love it. We actually bought a second copy so they each have their own copy if they ever have children of their own.

I only bought this book because it was on sale and was cheaper than getting the first three books in the series by themselves, but I'm glad I did. It is a beautiful book. The illustrations are worth it. However, it is very, very, very heavy. It's not a book that I would (or could) take anywhere. It does make me feel very important though, owning such a large book. I'm excited to take it to a coffee shop one day and make everyone else jealous.As far as the stories themselves, I'm only halfway through the first book, so I can't tell you much. I like her writing style though. The narrative has a historical bent to it (the narrator is outside the story, looking back long after the events have happened - as far as I can tell now) that I'm not used to, coming from listening to Brandon Sanderson, but I'm enjoying it. The magic system is also really interesting and I'm looking forward to getting more and more immersed in it.

A beautifully illustrated collection of all of Le Guin's Earthsea books and stories. Le Guin devotees will want this. The illustrator worked with the author on the illustrations and she approved them. Scrap the collection of paperbacks. This is the Earthsea book you want. This is a book to pass down to your children.

Other than Le Guin being a genius, she is an incredibly thoughtful in her approach to writing and crafting worlds. She is clearly well-traveled and well-read, and applies both of these things to her writing, pulling from philosophy, literary traditions, fantasy tropes. This series doesn't hit that same cozy feeling of that other wizard school series, but it has a much stronger literary and moral foundation to long outlast it. Her examination of the hero's journey and fantasy tropes is a conversation that is still happening online today (just usually applied towards film).

First on the content: Earthsea is a splendid series, on par with Tolkien or perhaps better. Le Guin is a story teller like few others. She looks deep into the human psyche, exploring the good, the bad, and everything between with a delicacy that leaves hope that light is greater than darkness, and perhaps there's good in darkness too. The books of the Earthsea series focus mainly on the inner struggles of the protagonists. Similar to Tolkien, there are individuals who fall to the influence of evil, but still evil is less personified. There are not ecosystems of monsters as there are in Tolkien, and even the worst villain is within reach of redemption.While these tales are heavy, they are appropriate for any age group, from five years to 95. Le Guin's language is plain and easy to read. The writing is accessible to beginner readers and has a depth that is also satisfying to adults.About this particular addition: It is a high quality printing but some aspects could be better.1. The entirety of Le Guin's Earthsea writings is in this single volume, including her short stories.2. The paper has good quality and weight.3. The text size is smaller than I would like, but not exceedingly small. The page margins are larger than necessary. Narrowing the margins would have allowed for larger text.4. The illustrations are well done. Some in color and some in black and white. But there are too few. In the entire first book, A Wizard of Earthsea, there are 5 illustrations.5. The book is too thick for its length and heigh. It's unwieldy to hold in your hand. Perhaps it was overly ambitious to fit all of Earthsea into one volume. Or perhaps it should have been done on a larger footprint in order to accommodate larger font size, more illustrations, and better ergonomics.I love this series too much to give it anything other than 5 stars to it. But this edition does have limitations due to being cramped into too small a footprint with wide margins wasting precious space. I don't regret having purchased it, and there is no good alternative for those wanting the comprehensive set of Earthsea, but I hope that a future edition will be sized better.

Loving this book, very engaging with relatable characters and gorgeous illustrations. I’m only wondering what took me so long to read this series?

It was definitely a nice edition, but once I had it in my hands I decided this wasn’t the format I wanted. I was prepared for how heavy and cumbersome it would be so that wasn’t the issue. I simply prefer individual books. I decided to buy the beautiful editions from The Folio Society. I will treasure them much more than I would have this copy