Anyone else here addicted to buying Penguin classics? I'm aware that the translations are usually sub par but they print pretty much everything I ever wanted to read and I just love how all my shelves line up perfectly. I've filled four now.Help
>>7375227
I've also quite a collection of Vintage classics, which look fantastic. Unfortunately they are missing a large number of titles.
>>7375227
fag
>>7375227
I'm always happy when I'm forced to purchase NYRB, they're my favorite. Modern Library, Oxford, Norton, and Vintage probably make up the most of my library otherwise.
>>7375243
Seconding Oxford and Vintage. NYRB seems a bit limited in range but the presentation is very nice
>>7375227
In a 100 years when your great grandchildren find your library they'll hate you for accumulating so much dirt. They'll read bad translations and think their forefathers were vain.
>>7375243
>>7375256
I quite like that NYRB has a small selection, they don't publish all the over-hyped meme classics. When you go to someone's house and they have half a dozen NYRB books you know they're more patrician than going to someone's house and they've got a whole shelf of penguins.
>>7375227
Part of me hates the monopoly penguin has over cheap, decent editions of a great deal of the market. I've got so many of the orange popular penguins (pic related, dunno if they're available in all countries) simply because they're 1/3 of the price of any other publisher and when you're a poor student you don't have a lot of choice. Even the penguin classics are usually significantly cheaper than anything but wordsworth.
>not buying wordsworth
seriously, there is no point in buying british/amercian novels of any other edition, unless you want luxury (and then you shouldn't but pengiun).
>>7375268
>>7375302
>when you're a poor student
ah fuck off with that your just being frugal and lazy.
You can find cheap books in any edition if you just look hard enough on the second hand market.
>>7375354
>second hand
>not buying the work of dead authors brand new
>>7375333
I don't know, I think the covers are a pretty good reason not to.
>>7375364
Are you really willing to pay for a better looking cover? Just wrap it with your own one like a notebook if you're so obssesed with it, it'll be much cheaper.
>>7375227
>>7375233
Vintage seems to be much higher quality for some weird reason.
>Finish fat penguin, spine half cracked to oblivion, toiletpaperthin pages half failing out.
>Finish fat Vintage: spine completely intact despite roughing it up, not a fucking crease to behold. Paper at least feels nice and doesn't attempt to flee the rest of the book.
>not buying Everyman's Library edition
I just buy whatever edition is without error, has decent quality, and is cheapest among those.
Bought a Modern Library Tristram Shandy. The pages are like those of a newspaper.
wat de fug, man
Why is it so hard to find anglo books that don't have fugly covers ? I want something simple without any shitty art, only the name of the author, the title and the publisher's logo. Is it too much too ask ?
>>7375499
Vintage is usually pretty solid. They usually go for one minimal vector/geometric theme with a writer and apply that to all books.
>muh minimalism.
>>7375510
>Minimalist book covers
>>7375426
You got any? Post pics pls
>>7375510
word, i love these camus covers
It's not about the books you own, it's about the books you READ. If you're doing it right you are looking at the INSIDE of the book rather than the outside, meaning that notes, translation, paper quality (for reading ease), font, layout, front matter etc, ought to be WAY more important than a book's external appearance.
This fact is so basic to reading that there's even a well known english language cliche about it, except here on /lit/ of course, where people are more concerned with how a book looks on a bookshelf and to potential qts in the coffee shop (hint: they couldn't care less) than the actual reading experience.
That said my favorites tend to be Library of America, Broadview, Norton Critical Editions. Tend to have good notes, design, and supplementary material.
>>7375539
>If you're doing it right you are looking at the INSIDE of the book rather than the outside, meaning that notes, translation, paper quality (for reading ease), font, layout, front matter etc, ought to be WAY more important than a book's external appearance.
You say paper quality and yet shun the external appearance, the "outside". Hardcover versus paperback is a pretty important question to ask. Obviously if some edition truly has all of these great features and yet the cover isn't nice, it's still worth more and worth to get compared to some shoddy translation, or poor paper quality book with a pretty cover.
>This fact is so basic to reading that there's even a well known english language cliche about it
What is it?
What books do you have from those three publishers that are well made?
>>7375527
Haven't got a camera, but they're classy when you remove the jacket.
>>7375549
>Don't
>Judge
>A
>Book
>By
>Its
>Cover
Broadview: Beowulf, Liuzza translation (far more accurate than Heaney)
NCE: Defoe: A Journal of the Plague Year, Robinson Crusoe
Lib of America: PKD, Four Novels of the 1960s
>>7375539
>Implying bookshelf aesthetics and actual reading are mutually exclusive
I used to know a lot of science students who didn't give a fuck about the clothes they wore because it was their personality that counted.
They all had autism.
>>7375551
I'm planning on buying War and Peace, Meditations, The Prince, and The Collected Stories(Hemingway), got any of those, aside from War and Peace?
Are these translations of Dostoyevsky's books good? I remember trying to find out which would be the best translation but I've forgotten all about it. Everyman's are Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
>>7375227
I buy both, I don't really have much of a preference, generally speaking where i live book stores usually sell one and the other (not like entirely, but of each individual book)
I will say that generally speaking enjoy the vintage book covers more... with the exception of Kurt Vonnegut, they should be a bit more silly and/or puply imo.
>>7375560
Those aren't mine. I do have their version of Gogol's collected tales, translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky, and they work well for Gogol.
For Tolstoy, I think Aylmer and Louise Maude are the best, approved by Tolstoy himself.
>>7375364
uhh the covers are hilarious retard
>>7375510
That Camus is awesome. I wish my country had more serious book designers. We have three competent ones, but most of the good translations end up as shitty paperbacks set in Times with crappy diacritics, kerning, etc.
>>7375581
>For Tolstoy, I think Aylmer and Louise Maude are the best, approved by Tolstoy himself.
Of course.
>>7375333
>>7375560
Go to amazon, click "look inside", read the first few pages and see if you find it readable.
>>7375605
Not sure if you're joking or not.
I hate my shelves to look too uniform, so I prefer to buy used out-of-print editions and small publisher editions to mix things up.
>>7375354
>live in middle of nowhere, australia
>no secondhand bookstores, shipping costs a dickoad
think before you post
>>7375426
What are the supplementary materials like with Everyman (notes, introductions, etc)? How do they compare to Oxford World Classics?
>>7375622
>too uniform
never
>>7375632
I only have one their books and it had a cursory introduction and no footnotes.
>>7375650
Always. Yoy gotta be autistic to like having your house look like a publisher's store.
>>7375670
>a cursory introduction and no footnotes.
and anons still endorse them
>>7375731
I think this a bit over the top, but i kinda agree to some extent... i do like having the same editions when it comes to authors though, i feel like that makes sense
opinions on Arcturus books?
>>7375857
I have their divine comedy. Gustave Dore illustrations, translated by Longfellow.
Hardcover, 30x24 cm, good paper quality.
No footnotes or endnotes.
Introduction and canto summaries.
We can all agree atleast that the Robin Buss translation of Count of Monte Cristo is fantastic.
If the main problem with Penguin is bad translations, are they /lit/ approved for stuff originally in English?
>>7376255
The main problem is that the binding and paper quality sucks. The translations' quality varies like in every other publisher.
I always go to the thrift store to see if they have any. They never do. And in the 'classics' section they put shit like Dean Koontz and Neil Gaiman.
If I could buy like a 100 pack for $30 on the internet I would for sure. But otherwise, might as well just pirate it and put it on my Kindle.
>>7375510
Love Vintage's design. For a simple paperback copy, that's exactly the ideal.
When you buy a hardcover, somthing expensive, you might want somthing more unique.
>>7376255
Depends on the book. Some books demand good footnotes to be read properly, and not all editions have that. If it's somthing simple we are talking about then yea.
>>7376347
Woops, messed up that second quote.
Anyway, I'll add that I've read a lot of Penguin translations of Ancient Greek literature. My only complaint is that sometimes the translators take a bit too much creative license and start using contemporary English phrases/write with the style & tone of a British sitcom.
One of the most popular examples around here is Fagles using the phrase "quit cramping my style!" in his Homer.
Aside from that, I haven't encountered any egregious translations. There are some weird things, like the Heraclitus, but there are also some really good things, like the Aesop.
Who /PushkinPress/ here? I love how handsome the small editions editions are and they have very durable spines so they don't go to shit on one reading like some publishers do.
Vintage I like since they do some nice covers sometimes and they are generally nice to read but I dislike the red spines they have.
NYBR I'd love to get sometime but they are quite hard to find where I live in the UK.
>>7375866
>Why would you want footnotes? If you're confused at something, you look it up online.
Bro, do you even /lit/? You're assuming you know enough about literature and history to even BE confused. It's like Rumsfeld said: there are things we don't know we don't know.
Often you don't even know the purpose of a footnote till you follow it. Like if something you initially think is just curious or hifalutin language is actually a Biblical quote or a classical allusion, or a reference to something cultural that's fallen out of fashion. Or if you're reading a translated book and there is a wierdness or problem passage in the source text. Or if you want to compare values between old and modern money. Or if the author refers to a neighborhood in a city that at the time had a certain class connotation... etc etc etc.
Or do you believe you're sooo fucking smart and cultured that a little bell goes off in your head every single time extra context or commentary might be helpful?
>>7375227
>I'm aware that the translations are usually sub par
are you also aware you're a retard?
>>7376638
spot on.
I'm addicted to collecting Bibliothèque de la Pléiade and Loeb Classical Library editions. That's about as patrician as you can get imho unless you're talking about major first editions, rare books, or curated private collections of personal manuscripts, letters, etc. To do that stuff though, your personal book-buying budget needs to approach high six, low seven figures.
Looks so fucking bland. A good bookshelf, ascetically, has variations in color, size, etc.
>>7375610
Why not? There's no objectively best translation since every translation has to sacrifice some of this for some of that. Compare different translations on Amazon and pick the one that's best to you.
>>7376328
I know this fucking feel. I went into the goodwill by my place a while back and they had "classics" written on a sticky note and on the shelf they had like only Steven King.
>>7377173
patrician life is the only life worth aiming for imo fma
Norton criticals are master race in terms of supplementary materials.
So much so, that you get this unsatisfying feel of finishing the book with two hundred pages of other shit you haven't and will never read still to go.
so does the "penguin translations are bad" idea have any real merit? i read the count of monte cristo penguin classics and i fucking loved it. are the other translations really that much better?
>>7375227
>translations
alma classics are the best
>>7375227
The ONLY time Penguin is good is when you buy a deluxe edition, I work in a book store and the spines on Penguin books never line up. The other day I had 8 copies of The Scarlet Letter come in and the emblems, words, and general alignment were all off. I wish I had taken a picture but the sheer apathy towards even the spine of the book should tell you the quality of Penguin.
>>7377415
>memes
fuck you memes are shit, stop using them
>>7377454
>meme
Oxford Worlds Classics are objectively the best paperback books, period.
>expansive footnotes
>glossaries of foreign, periodic, or subject-specific (ie, nautical) terms
>sexy as fuck covers that merge traditional art with sleek minimalism
>durable as fuck for a paperback
>cheap
>huge selection
>>7377457
Are you trying to start a meme war senpai? Its Saturday and I'm drunk so I will fucking burn this thread.
>>7375227
>I'm aware that the translations are usually sub par
>I just love how all my shelves line up perfectly. I've filled four now.
You are literally a fashion reader.
OP is about as /lit/ as your common teenage girl with a "booktuber" channel.
>>7377465
you forgot
>typesetting that looks like mass-market paperbacks from the 70s
>>7377498
is that a bad thing?
>>7377498
sorry great literature doesn't come in helvetica, you insufferable faggot
>>7377559
>being this much of an annoyed fangirl over a valid concern
>seriously thinks that he isn't the one who is being the faggot here
>>7375625
Sorry, I don't typically worry about the reading habits of convicts.
>>7375227
Penguin footnotes a shit.
>reading The Morgesons for class
>reading footnotes as I go
>read footnote around page 50
>spoils the ending of the book
It's not a hard thing to avoid, just don't tell the reader how the book ends in a footnote. Fucking Penguin.
>>7377499
>>7377559
my issue isn't aesthetic, like typeface choices.
they are not on par with modern typesetting practices.
pic related is one issue.
also, you're about 7 years late on the helvetica jokes.
>>7377625
Jesus, I had that in Jane Eyre with Penguin.
Admittedly I'm behind the times for being spoiled on it, but did you really have to include a footnote along the lines of"This becomes relevant in the final chapters, when Mr. Rochester has been blinded and crippled in the fire when his house burned down killing his wife"Like I wasn't even to the point of knowing he /had/ a wife and they drop that shit on me.
>>7375510
Vintage's murakami designs are cancer
>>7377673
>>7375625
Do you not go on booko.com.au and then just end up on Book Depository 90% of the time like the rest of us?
Shipping is free for them.
Besides Abebooks shipping is usually the same Australia-wide as well. Middle of nowhere be damned.
>>7375364
That's one of the older painting ones.
If you going to mock Wordsworth - you do it for the new Photoshop shit.
>>7377625
>>7377673
That's what you deserve for reading for the story/plot
>>7377465
But the footnotes aren't even that great and often contribute absolutely nothing to your lectures
What kind of editions/translations of classics get made into (legally) free ebooks, /lit/? Am I right in assuming that you wouldn't get any translations after around WW2, and the notes would also be old or nonexistent?
>>7376255
Penguin will fall apart after 1 or 2 readings, especially if it's a doorstopper. I had Les Miserables's binding tearing away during my first reading.
>>7375227
>Anyone else here addicted to buying Penguin classics?
to actually answer your question, yes.
Well, not sure i'm 'addicted to buying' them in the same way you are, as yours all look new. But if i'm in a charity shop and see a title i don't have for under £2 I buy it.
I'm less interested in the modern classics.
Here's my collection from earlier this year, since then i've filled those shelves and started a new shelf. I don't keep the 'popular classics' series on the same shelves as the cover are awful (the pale cream ones …).
1/2 – older editions
>>7378711
2/2, newer style
>>7378711
Beautiful
Booktuber tier
>>7375227
Reminder that Penguin doesn't have bad translations. it's a meme.
>>7378711
>tfw the best local charity bookshop puts paperbacks up to £2.50
Damn, those starving orphans are getting greedy
>>7378714
OT but people are talking about other classics series … and here are my ~100 old oxford classics stacked 2*2, this is what they used to look like before moving to paperback.
I don't 'collect' them like the penguins above, but got a really good deal with most of these as a job lot. I've got some newer ones as well, but mostly purchased new for specific title I wanted to read that I don't have in penguin classic of old oxford sets.
>>7375227
But anon, they look so ugly.
yes. i also buy 1st edition Signet Classics.
1st edition Penguins are hard af to get.
>>7377389
This...
Even worse are the anthologies. Better, but worse.
>>7377452
>penguin deluxe
>gravity's Rainbow
Otherwise yes I agree. Though some people really hate the newer ones. Pic related
