/lit/ - Literature

>>3356119
I've never understood why /lit/ celebrate penguin books so?

>>3356121
it's a meme joke

Noob OP.

My 40+ Penguin classics are 40+ years old

Fear and trembling is shit. You really have a small dick if you pretend to like this fossilized piece of shit.

>>3356130

>>>/hm

>>3356130
>dem premises
>dem arguments
>dem conclusions

Try reading the Alphabet book first, before attempting to read Kierkegaard

>implying I can't select my own damn Baudelaire poems

Fucking Penguin.

>Penguin Books
>Master race
>Not knowing that title is exclusively reserved for NYRB Classics

Penguin's nice, but NYRB Classics are god tier.

I own a lot of classics (probably more than 50), in my ereader.

>reading shitty translations
stay pleb, plebe

>>3356119
>the damned
dat small print

>>3356174
>Penguin's crap, but NYRB Classics are solid.

I made your statement more accurate.

shot with potato.

>Penguin

>not Puffer
>not Harper-Collins

What does /lit/ think of Wordsworth Classics?

>>3356234
Worse than fucking satan, only use if you want something that was wrote in the English language very cheap

>>3356248
Fair enough, the main reason I bought them was because of the price, I'll avoid them from now on then.

>>3356234
only use them for short story compilations of anglophone writers

>>3356119
>collecting paperbacks
Could you be any more pleb?

>>3356248
The past participle is 'written' you cunt.

Pfft, more like those who own 25 or more Loebs = master race

>penguin classics

>not acknowledging the superiority of Everyman's Library

>>3356322
>not modern classics from the 1960's

>>3356311
Loebs are nice. But you have to soak them in new book smell to get rid of the fungal spore stench.

I might be closing in on 25 Penguin Classics, but they're all those older beige ones from the '90s.

If you are not reading Dover Thrift Editions and burning them afterwards to heat your home through this winter then you need to learn how to fucking read.

captcha: antsFew pyrosis

>>3356325
I think you mean Modern Library.

>not buying Wordsworth Classics
Fucking bourgeois scum.

>2013
>Not buying Folio Society editions all the time because you're one rich motherfucking baller

>>3357448
Their cover for Dead Souls is abysmal

>>3357464
Have you seen their cover for The Master and Margarita? It is shit beyond belief.

>>3357464
I like their covers mostly. Wordsworths are pretty cheap quality but I don't mind really.

Penguin's on the other hand always seem to have awful covers. My Penguin version of 1984 just has some crappy picture of a chair. A fucking chair

>>3356207
Thats a nice cure for insomnia you have there

>>3356322
>>not acknowledging the superiority of Everyman's Library

I recently picked up a book from everymans library and was really surprised and happy with how great the quality is. I wonder why I never see anyone talking about them.

>>3357546
To be honest, I don't like what they've done with the covers for newer novels. The style of Everyman's Library totally fits with older books and the classics, but stuff like Catch-22 really shouldn't be in brown-grey with a melancholy picture of Joseph Heller on the front and the title in a plain font. It doesn't fit with the novel, ya dig?

>>3356328
I haven't noticed said stench, but they do often (at least ones I've bought) have page cutting issues. I prefer the Oxford Classical Texts.
I cannot wait for this new series: http://www.murtylibrary.com/

>>3356119
>not the great books of western civilizations

>Caesar - Conquest of Gaul
NOT DE BELLO GALLICO
>Huysmans - La Bas
NOT EN ROUTE

yay I can join this masterrace, here are my twenty-five

also have a bit of Penguin modern/20th century classics, but I guess those don't count.

Should I get the penguin classics version with the BITCHIN' cover or should I get the Serpent's Tail version?

I'm more concerned with the translation
But this cover is just BITCHIN'

>2013
>not owning at least 25 signet classics

Dalkey Archive masterrace

>>3356174

haha.
All their best stuff is reprints.

>>3358346
Well, yes. That's kind of the point of the series...

I wanted to break from all the Penguin shit on my shelf so I ordered a copy of a Trollope book published by Oxford and the book looks and feels so goddamn flimsy. Those cheap fuckin' B&N Classics are better quality than this.

>>3358347
Have you read any of them yet? Best/worst?

>>3358339
What is going on in the picture?

>>3358358

Celine, Klossowski, Danilo Kis,Theater of Incenst and Flaubert were all good.

Haven't read the others yet. I got them this christmas with their offer (20 for $120)

>>3358352
>buying a paperback A5 of a fucking Trollope doorstop and expecting sturdiness
Oxford's great for the notes, not the paper

>>3358364

that's a man that has lost his head and seems overjoyed by it.

>>3358370
>overjoyed
He's raising his arms in despair

>>3358365
Yeah, their offers are excellent. I'm hoping to pick up another 10 when they have the summer sale.

>>3358369
I didn't know, dude. I had never ordered a book published by Oxford.

>>3358376
Oxford = Good
Trollope = Bad
The Oxford World Classics are very nice editions, all things considered.

>>3358370
holy shit, I just noticed that he didn't have a head.

in the years I've seen that cover posted, I always just thought he had it leaning back a bit. but now I notice it's not even there.

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Frankenstein-Mary-Wollstonecraft-Shelley/9780140623321

Anyone know how are the quality of these penguins? "Popular Classics" I'm thinking on ordering quite a lot of these but the price makes me doubt.(2cheap)

>>3358379
What's bad about Trollope?

>>3358372

to me it looks like an exultation. that also fits with pessoa i think, the way he often turns his despair into something sublime. that's what i thought anyway.

>>3358385
See
>>3358352
>>3358369
>>3358376

I shall also add here that I no longer buy Penguin paperbacks, only Oxford World Classics.

>>3358383

The entire point of Penguin Classics is to provide a large selection of the classics at a "cheap" price.
You shouldn't expect much.

>>3358392
What happens when the Penguin translation is more revered than the Oxford one? You just go ahead and buy the worse version?

>>3358364
Is that a basketball behind his left hand?

>>3358408
Fuck, now I see it.

It looks more like a volleyball.
So the guy lost his head while he was playing volleyball, in a suit.

>>3358420

I think the ball might belong to the kid. Just a guess.

>>3358399
>reading translations
NOPE.

>>3358428
I think I get it now, the kid threw the ball to the guy's head so he retracted his head into his body in reflex.

>>3358466

Yes, Pessoa was a turtle all along.

>>3358399
I've never seen that happen, but it's a rare occasion that I read translations. At the moment I only own one (and I'd like to someday learn the language it's in).

>>3358374
>Dalkey Archive
Oh shit nigger. I just realized most of my Celine is from them. Do they have any other high quality Fascist literature?

Also, when's their summer sale usually?

>>3357822
I have that

you jelly /lit/

>>3358474
What languages do you know? It seems really ridiculous to limit yourself to the literature of only a handful of languages. Do you never find a book you're interested in that was originally written in a language you don't know? Or do you, but then ignore them because they had to be translated? It seems crazy that someone wouldn't find books from all over the world that intrigue them. For someone to ignore Dostoevsky, Schulz, Proust, Dante, Pessoa, Soseki, Borges or any of them just because they don't know the language.

>>3358492
Not really. Fucking love my collection of odd paperbacks which has taken years to compile.

>>3358492
No I am not "jelly."
Plus, these books are all legally available for free on the internet.

>>3358496
That sounds like sarcasm. I don't know, I would much prefer a hardcover formal set of the western canon to a bunch of paperbacks... Especially if they were compiled so nicely by Britannica

>>3358505
Well I received the set for free as a gift from my grandfather because no one uses them ever.

>>3358518
Its not sarcasm, I don't like hardcovers much.

>>3358494
I'm learning/have learned quite a few, but I think it's worth mentioning that it's possible for me to read for different reasons than you do. Also, there's a lot of fantastic works of literature in the languages I do know. I consider translations rather stripped-down storytelling, stripped in the senses of eloquence and authorial agency. In other words, even if those authors would touch my life remarkably, I can never really tap into that by reading in translation, so not much is lost by forgetting a translation versus reading it. A number of translations have even become respectable works in themselves, a popular example being the KJV, and I certainly would read works such as those.

>>3358505
lmao his books are made of wood

>>3358559
so are yours shitstick

unless you use a kindle, in which case yours are made with the precious minerals of the earth

Alright /lit/, how bad do you want it?

http://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Classics-Library-Complete-Collection/dp/0147503078/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358219220&sr=8-1&keywords=complete+penguin+classics

>>3358518
There's certainly a lot of good stuff in there, but those are peerlessly hideous editions.

>>3358564
omg u r so smart

>>3358566
Quite honestly, I'd rather have the NYRB Classics complete collection.

http://www.amazon.com/Classics-Anniversary-Complete-Collection-Review/dp/1590173570/

About 800 less volumes, but it's also more than $10,000 cheaper. And still an excellent selection.

>>3356278
why not full-length novels and the like?

PC:8

:(

Well, I'd like more

Only a pseudo-intellectual turns to Penguin Classics to read Kierkegaard - time for you to spend a bit of cash and buy the Hong and Hong Princeton translations.

>>3358339
The Jull Costa translation is superior.