Quality, unique trade paperbacks for classic novels??

[ambient_woolf]

Perhaps this is insane and OCD but I want to find some classy book designs. Classic books are almost always one of two things: a monotonous, uniform spine/cover design (Penguin/Oxford) or a small mass market style with a font size that is barely legible (Signet).

For general reading purposes I don't care so much about this, but if it's a book I really love then I'd prefer a nice oversized trade paperback. This does seem rare for classic lit, though. Vintage International is a decent example of what I'm wanting.

[mal4mac]

This shows extreme sanity and taste! A decent classic repays repeated reading across several lifetimes, so it's worth spending a bit more to get a decent version that will not yellow or collapse within a few years. Also, if you keep it for years, you want something that looks good on the shelf!

So why not go for hardback? Everyman and modern library do decent hardback versions of classics that are hardly, if any, more expensive than trade paperbacks. Besides the obvious superiority, they also use acid proof paper, unlike most mass market paperback publishers. If you like classic American authors, "Library of America" hardbacks look really classy - just bought my first: three Saul Bellow novels for far less than the price of three paperbacks. Then again, university press paperbacks are usually decent, as are Dover and Norton.

The only thing against the hardback collections, for you, might be the uniform design - I don't find it monotonous, it leads to a feeling that I'm building a nice collection, and I think the uniformity looks good in the bookcase. I mean, you don't paint your walls all sort of different colours (do you?)

[kev67]

Penguin's English Library covers are quite classy looking paperbacks. Vintage do some very classy covers of old books.

[ambient_woolf]

And an entirely unrelated question: for anyone who owns an e-reader like the Kindle, is the formatting well-done these days? And is there a legal way to get TONS of books? How often do good books go on sale for cheap, or are the sale books usually crap I'd never want to read?

[Poetaster]

I buy Penguin classics, they are my work-horses and I never really have much of a problem. But - saying that, the Penguin Classics to wear very quickly: looking into Everymans hardbacks is likely going to be your way to go.

[ladderandbucket]

Penguin deluxe editions are nice: http://www.us.penguingroup.com/pages/classics/deluxe.html

[wreade1872]

They're not proper classics but the penguin Great Ideas series is amazingly stylish, in fact i think they may have won some award for it.

As i said they're not exactly classics more essays and things, like virginia woolfs 'a room of ones own' or jonathon swift 'a tale of a tub', mary wollstonecraft 'a vindication of the rights of woman, machievellis 'the prince' etc.


A lot of classics are being released in really nice hard back editions now, in my local store they call them Gift Books. Not sure who's making them though but i think its a spreading phenomenon.

Since people can get classics free on ereaders, stores are going the opposite way, selling expensive but stylish hardbacks since they can't compete anymore with simply selling the text in a cheap print version.

[wreade1872]

And an entirely unrelated question: for anyone who owns an e-reader like the Kindle, is the formatting well-done these days? And is there a legal way to get TONS of books? How often do good books go on sale for cheap, or are the sale books usually crap I'd never want to read?

And as for this, YESSS!!!. Everything thats considered a classic is so because its out of copyright, there are many, many places to download this stuff free and legal.

My favourites are http://manybooks.net for most of the more well known stuff. Or http://www.gutenberg.org.
https://archive.org/details/texts for the really obscure stuff.
http://www.hathitrust.org/ for more obscure stuff, many texts are only available online, some however can be downloaded.

The two latter use OCR unless your reading the pdf version, my reader doesn't like pdf so i'm stuck with the OCR versions which can have errors but are generally good enough.

[mal4mac]

Penguin's English Library covers are quite classy looking paperbacks. Vintage do some very classy covers of old books.

But do they use acid proof paper and quality binding? From what I've seen Penguin and Vintage never do. I quite like the Vintage covers & large font, but they aren't high quality.

My Vintage Don Quixote yellowed very quickly and it fell apart! Everyman have a far superior hardback version by the same translator - I gave the bedraggled Vintage to the charity shop and will definitely buy the hardback come re-read time.

You even have to be careful with Penguin hardbacks, my "Canterbury Tales" yellowed as quickly as the paperbacks, so I think they're using the same bog standard paper - cheapskates. My better hardbacks come up to ANSI standard Z39.48 and say so on the copyright page. I'll be looking out for this, or a similar standard, from now on.

You can't tell a book by its cover :)

[mal4mac]

And as for this, YESSS!!!. Everything thats considered a classic is so because its out of copyright, there are many, many places to download this stuff free and legal.

What about foreign classics? The best translations I've found are by living translators, and they need to eat, so they aren't free. Also, do you really like reading the kindle as much as an Everyman hardback? I looked at a kindle for some time in a shop recently and didn't like it so much - the screen seems a bit glary to me, like most screens. Also don't they break easily? How would they stand up to hours of daily reading? I use the library mostly, anyway, so that's free hardbacks!

[ambient_woolf]

I should have been more specific. For the ebooks, I was talking about modern classics, major and minor. Stuff like Morrison, Chabon, Calvino, Saramago, Murakami.

[kelby_lake]

You used to be able to get Penguins that had blank covers. The idea was that you drew your own cover art.

[ambient_woolf]

Is it easy to order books from the UK considering I live in the US? I've discovered a wonderful solution to this is Vintage's British arm. They have elegant covers that aren't drably uniform like Penguin or Oxford World's Classics.

I tried to include a link but wouldn't allow me. I suppose you can Google "vintage classic gift picker" if you're not familiar with the series.

Another thing that annoys me: I hate an endless sea of annotations and footnote numbers. I want an authoritative text, true, but I don't want superscript or asterisks breaking up my reading. Yes, I'm incredibly picky. Oh well.

[mande2013]

Are the "Library of America" hardbacks printed on acid proof paper?

[ambient_woolf]

Indeed they are, but the aesthetics of the LoA series are lacking for me as well. All uniform, true, but in addition to that the cover art is hideously boring.

[mande2013]

But let's be honest here. Books, even pricier ones, aren't designed to remain in mint condition for decades, no matter how anal the collector is. Is it really worth all that stress waging war with the elements. If you walk into some rare book shop that specializes in selling volumes that are two thirds of a century old how many books on the shelf are going to actually be in perfect condition? Very few I would imagine. And besides, the dog-earedness, within limits, tends to provide a book with character.

[ambient_woolf]

Oh, definitely. That's why I prefer flashy covers with lower grade paper compared to dull covers with high quality paper: in the end, the low quality paper will STILL last me my whole life.

[Poetaster]

Penguin deluxe editions are nice: http://www.us.penguingroup.com/pages/classics/deluxe.html

Sometimes those are good, sometimes those are awful, like the Gravity's Rainbow deluxe edition. Trust me on this one.