Independent publisher Restless Books, headed by Amherst professor Ilan Stavans, launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a new “Restless Classics” series. “Don Quixote” will be the first, with original woodcut illustrations by the artist Eko.

Picking up Don Quixote can be daunting, even for the biblio-inclined, and getting through its many hundreds of pages can be a heavy—not to mention lonely—task. But Ilan Stavans adores Miguel de Cervantes’s four-century-old classic, and he’d like to share with everyone the wonder of diving into the quirky tale of a middle-aged gentleman who sets out on a mission to court adventure and destroy evil.

Stavans, a humanities professor at Amherst College and publisher of Restless Books, has chosen his favorite book of all time as the first in a new series of “Restless Classics” from his similarly named independent publisher. Brooklyn, New York-based Restless Books, which has been in operation since last fall, launched a Kickstarter campaign Monday to raise $20,000 to print a new edition of Don Quixote, with original woodcut illustrations by the artist Eko.

But the series, whose tag line is “an interactive encounter with great books and inspired teachers,” doesn’t stop at the physical volumes. For each classic it publishes, Restless Books will release several videos featuring a scholar (in this case, Stavans) helping readers navigate through the book. They’ll give context, discuss characters and prepare readers for subsequent sections.

“I’m convinced that what we love when we read is not only the act of losing ourselves in the fantasy of the author but the capacity that we have to share that experience with others and talk about it,” says Stavans, who is originally from Mexico.

Read more here.