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/lit/ - Literature

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8594780 No.8594780 [Reply] [Original]

Why does /lit/ have a problem with Penguin Books?

>> No.8594795

Poor quality

Poor qualityPoor qualityPoor qualityPoor qualityPoor niggersPoor qualityPoor qualityPoor quality

>> No.8594797

/lit/ likes penguin books desu

>> No.8594810

Their paperbacks are alright. I like the black spine design. So they absorbed Random House right? Is everything published under the Penguin name now or is Random House still a functioning entity?

>> No.8594811

>>8594795
>Poor quality
I've never had a problem with the quality to be honest.

>> No.8594817

I trashed those Penguin hardcovers in that thread because if you're going to buy hardcovers, buy good hardcovers. Those Penguin ones are poorly made (glued bindings) and they're ugly to boot. They do look, as someone said, like they're meant to decorate a teenage girl's bedroom.

I have no problem with Penguin Classics paperbacks, because they're bound just like every other paperback, it's just paper and glue, you know what you're getting. Once in a while I see somebody on here saying Penguin Classics in general are bad. He says the paperbacks are poorly made or something. They're just as well made as every other trade paperback. He may be getting fooled by textured covers or something. It's all just paper and glue.

Penguin Classics themselves - the translations, the editing - it varies by book. Sometimes you want them, sometimes there's a better choice. Nothing wrong with them generally, though.

>> No.8594821
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8594821

>> No.8594823

>>8594810
Why don't you look it up dumb bitch

>> No.8594824

>>8594780
They helped screw over Norman Thomas Di Giovanni, Borges' friend and preferred translator, in favor of inferior versions just so they could part with fewer shekels.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/feb/19/jorge-luis-borges-di-giovanni

>> No.8594830

>>8594821
>this is real

>> No.8594842

>>8594830
It's a modern classic :))))))))))))))))

>> No.8594853

The parent company has ties to the Nazis and they lied about it.

>> No.8594856

>>8594853
badass

>> No.8594868

>>8594824
Don't think he translated Ficciones though, so you're probably stuck with Hurley for Borges' best anyway.

>> No.8594980

>>8594868
Nah, there's a decent Anthony Kerrigan one that's still in print iirc

>> No.8595014

>>8594853
wtf i love penguin publishing now

>> No.8595031

>>8594780
They publish many excellent classic and 20th century writers, but they print them on thick toilet paper that turns spotted and yellow within a couple of years.

>> No.8595058

They're fine. I don't buy books to look impressive on a bookshelf, because I'm not a total wanker.

>> No.8595081

>>8594817
>>8594780

Peguin's 20th century classics (the green spine series) have standard quality for paperbacks in general. But I had bad experiences with the black spine ones and Peguin classics deluxe, most of them broke in the first read. I kinda recommend vintage better for paperback, at least I have had good experiences with those.

>> No.8595090

>>8594853
Cool

Don't feel bad about buying their convenient paperbacks anymore

>> No.8595112
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8595112

>>8594780
penguins can´t compare to ducks and birds, thats why.

and they rape dead penguin bodies.

they are the evil in this world.

and the epitome of cuckoldry.

>> No.8595141

>>8594853
They're Anglos, what did you expect

>> No.8595194

>>8594780
No one can beat their selection - no, not even Oxford classics. They look pretty decent, covers and spines, and you can always get them second hand for cheap.

On the negative side, theyre not made to last past a couple readings. I'm not careless or fought with my books either. I just keep them. I have a penguin classic for every work of fiction in the western canon from Aeschylus to Goethe, as well as a whole shelf of pre revolutionary Russians and French symbolists/degenerate lit, and more than some of the first ones I bought have fallen apart, makes me wish I had chosen a different publisher for my collection. Eh, I'll probably just rebuy them on Amazon for cheap.

>> No.8595207

>>8595194
what the fuck are you doing? manhandling those books? chill the fuck out its just words on a page lmao no biggie just read it and put it down f a m its not a football, ok? ffs are you stupid?

>> No.8595325

I love penguins so much, I believe the various imprints make up well over a 1/3 of my books. They are my second or third favorite publisher.

>> No.8595334

Penguin should be chosen only if they have the best translation for foreign works available or if you have to just by default.

They've translated such a vast amount of books you're forced to at times or go with some independent publishing garbage with typos.

Oxford or modern library should be a go to first though.

>> No.8595358

>>8594823
Do it for me.

>> No.8595421

>>8595325
May I ask what your favourite publishers are, in that case?

Genuinely curious, because I haven't given publishers much thought (my native language isn't spoken by many, so I'll take whatever I can get my hands on)

>> No.8595449

>>8595112
fuck you nigger
penguins will inherent earth

>> No.8595464

shit quality paper , binding and covers considering their competitors are all making strides in that field

>> No.8595573

>>8595421
My absolute favorite is Virago Modern Classics and I collect the old green-covered books. Other favorites are Persephone Books, Oxford World's Classics, NYRB Classics, Faber Poetry, and Tuttle for Japanese lit.

>> No.8596828

>>8594780
Poor quality, the pages simply start falling out of larger works, like my copy of the Penguing Book of English Poetry, and they occasionally make retarded editorial decisions, like publishing Isak Dinesen's short stories 'Anecdotes of Destiny' as 'Babette's Feast' for no reason and then still having the original title appear on the top of each page.
They also publish the only major dictionary with etymological entries still in actual print, though, which speaks to their credit

>> No.8596850

The ink in my penguin modern classics edition of Ulysses smears like hell. Anyone else have this problem?

>> No.8598400

i only read penguin

>> No.8598462
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8598462

>>8594780
The new Pocket Penguins look ok? Different colours for different countries, and so on. I don't know about the translations.

>> No.8599874

Bump

>> No.8599935

They're pretty good. I just don't like buying too many of them purely because I don't like the look of having an entire shelf full of Penguin Classics books / any other identical publisher's books.

>> No.8600046

>>8594810
>>8595358
"Penguin Random House" is the name of the company, books can be published under that name but some will continue to be published under one or the other, for example Penguin classics.

>> No.8600126

>>8599935
Seriously this, I actually like penguin a lot, but I just don't want my bookshelf to look like it belongs in a publishers office.

>> No.8600189
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8600189

>>8600126
You need a pretty big proportion of your books to be Penguin before you start to look like a collector/weirdo
Meanwhile I would more Penguin books to make this shelf look more even

>> No.8600204
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8600204

>>8594780
I have no problem with them. I've got nearly 100 Penguin Classics and about 20 of the Penguin Modern Classics, plus others regularly published by them. They make up about 15% of my library, which isn't enough to make it look as awful as they do when all together.

>> No.8600210

>>8595449
>black and white bird
STOP RACEMIXING REEEEEE

>> No.8600254

>>8600189
Well i got a lot of penguin classic, and vintage, but I guess if put them at different places in my self it don't look too bad.

>> No.8600261

>>8600189
Needs some more Penguin 20th Century Classics for a pop of green

>> No.8600662

>tfw Vintage is just an division of Penguin
>can't escape
>can't escape

>> No.8600672

I like the turquoise spine Penguins but they don't print them anymore.

>> No.8600684

>>8594780
>Why does /lit/ have a problem with Penguin Books?
/lit/ is a containment board for leopard seals

>> No.8600705

>>8594780
As someone who used to work in a bookstore and spent a lot of time comparing publishers I will say this. The quality is awful, if you have 15 of the same book the spines are never properly aligned in printing so they look oddly crooked when placed together. The paper quality is very cheap so you are likely to tear pages on accident. Text alignment very often is off grid and looks sloppy. The editing is at the level of a Freshman English Major, tons of grammatical and punctuation errors. Translations are often even worse for this. The sometimes exception to the rule is the Deluxe editions but for those you really have to compare with other publishers as they might still be of lesser quality.

>> No.8600707

>>8600662
>tfw like half of all publishers are under the Penguin-Random House umbrella
feels so bad man

>> No.8600713

Better than wordsworth in my opinion.

Most of my classics are penguin paperbacks, they just got so much.

>> No.8600716

>>8594780
I wasn't aware that we had a problem with Penguin Books

>> No.8600725

>>8600662
Even nyrb is distributed by Random House.
It's a conspiracy.

>> No.8600734

70's silver penguin are the best.

The black spine ones are of fairly low quality (my Odyssey fell apart during the first read) but so cheap it doesn't really matter, also, the fact that they have such a massive library of classics also makes for a trustworthy buy. Buying a single book from some BS publisher is always a bad idea

>> No.8600749

>>8595112
Everyone thinks they're such sweet little things
Soft downy feathers and nice little wings
But there's a poison I'd like to administer
You think they're cuddly, but I think they're sinister
Ducks! Ducks!

>> No.8600757

>>8594780
I research their editions and translations in general before buying because they have a kind of high probability for being shoddy. That said, they're leagues better than, say, Dalkey. I don't really blind buy any books anymore, unless it's brand new.

For very cheap low quality paperbacks I like a publisher called Wordsworth that are always heavily stocked at Half-Price books. They have decent covers and usually fall apart on the first or second read but they cost $4 US brand new.

>> No.8600777

>>8600757
Look at these covers, mang:
http://www.wordsworth-editions.com/collection/classics

>> No.8600807

Is the Penguin Ibn Fadlan book any good?

>> No.8601081
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8601081

>>8600777
checked

>> No.8601120

>>8594821
I actually enjoyed it senpai

>> No.8601135

Penguin classics are the best choice of paperback roughly 80% of the time in my experience.