what mightbe taken as the symbolic passing of the torch from Mortimer Adler toOprah Winfrey, a number of the Penguin classics chosen by Oprah forher Book Club have carried on their covers the seal with the words,‘Recommended for Discussion by the Great Books Foundation’.

I like the Penguins just fine, and have to confess to enjoying the look of their matte-blank ranks on a shelf when stood all together. I wish they were still priced at the same as a pack of cigarettes, but I guess Allen Lane couldn't have predicted the sorry state of our world. As far as alternatives go, the Oxford World's Classics imprint offers comparable breadth and (often) superior critical material. They're also willing to print interesting variants; one example of this may be found in their offering of both the widely-known 1831 single-volume edition and the original 1818 edition, which contains significant differences. Two other imprints for which to watch out: The Norton Critical Editions are distinctive in all their colourful, oversized splendour, but they offer some of the best value for money if you're seeking an edition of a classic work that also includes a host of useful supplemental documents, critical writings, timelines, and other things that may be of use to those seeking a wider context. This can admittedly get a bit ridiculous in its scope (though I wouldn't have it any other way; the Norton edition of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darknessis around 500 pages long, for instance, with maybe a fifth of that being accounted for by the novella itself. Similarly to the above, the Broadview editions (put out by a Canadian company of the same name) tend to have extremely in-depth supplementary materials. They're also known for offering just as serious and useful editions of comparatively obscure works as they are for well-known classics.

traffic was increasing to sites that had previously been suppressed by Google Search’s “Penguin” update from 2012

Finally, in 2000, the book was published in the U.K. Penguin sold a few hundred copies in England. At Viking-Penguin in New York, Caroline White, a senior editor, ordered a print run of thirty-two thousand, with the hope that some strong reviews would mean that the new edition would displace Garnett, the Maudes, and other translations on the academic market.

fulgence LANGUAGE FAMILY: indo-european > italic > latinORIGIN: latin NAME ROOT: FULGĕO > FULGENS / FULGēRE > FULGENTIUSMEANING: This name derives from the Latin “fulgĕo > fulgens / fulgēre > Fulgentius”, meaning “illustrious, beautiful, famous, shine brightly, glitter, sparkle”. Fabius Planciades Fulgentius was a Latin writer of late antiquity. Four extant works are commonly attributed to him, as well as a possible fifth which some scholars include in compilations with much reservation. His mytho-graphic work was greatly admired and highly influential throughout much of the medieval period, but is viewed with little favor today.

raphy. Surely the fault of that savant was not neglecbut over-confidence in the virtue of the fiche, and the true morthat there is no necessary salvation in the fiche and the card-indTh

Les murs du cabinet de travail, le plancher, le plafond même portaient des liasses débordantes, des cartons démesurément gonflés, des boîtes où se pressait une multitude innombrable de fiches, et je contemplai avec une admiration mêlée de terreur les cataractes de l'érudition prêtes à se rompre. —Maître, fis-je d'une voix émue, j'ai recours à votre bonté et à votre savoir, tous deux inépuisables. Ne consentiriez-vous pas à me guider dans mes recherches ardues sur les origines de l'art pingouin? —Monsieur, me répondit le maître, je possède tout l'art, vous m'entendez, tout l'art sur fiches classées alphabétiquement et par ordre de matières. Je me fais un devoir de mettre à votre disposition ce qui s'y rapporte aux Pingouins. Montez à cette échelle et tirez cette boîte que vous voyez là-haut. Vous y trouverez tout ce dont vous avez besoin. J'obéis en tremblant. Mais à peine avais-je ouvert la fatale boîte que des fiches bleues s'en échappèrent et, glissant entre mes doigts, commencèrent à pleuvoir. Presque aussitôt, par sympathie, les boîtes voisines s'ouvrirent et il en coula des ruisseaux de fiches roses, vertes et blanches, et de proche en proche, de toutes les boîtes les fiches diversement colorées se répandirent en murmurant comme, en avril, les cascades sur le flanc des montagnes. En une minute elles couvrirent le plancher d'une couche épaisse de papier. Jaillissant de leurs inépuisables réservoirs avec un mugissement sans cesse grossi, elles précipitaient de seconde en seconde leur chute torrentielle. Baigné jusqu'aux genoux, Fulgence Tapir, d'un nez attentif, observait le cataclysme; il en reconnut la cause et pâlit d'épouvante. —Que d'art! s'écria-t-il. Je l'appelai, je me penchai pour l'aider à gravir l'échelle qui pliait sous l'averse. Il était trop tard. Maintenant, accablé, désespéré, lamentable, ayant perdu sa calotte de velours et ses lunettes d'or, il opposait en vain ses bras courts au flot qui lui montait jusqu'aux aisselles. Soudain une trombe effroyable de fiches s'éleva, l'enveloppant d'un tourbillon gigantesque. Je vis durant l'espace d'une seconde dans le gouffre le crâne poli du savant et ses petites mains grasses, puis l'abîme se referma, et le déluge se répandit sur le silence et l'immobilité. Menacé moi-même d'être englouti avec mon échelle, je m'enfuis à travers le plus haut carreau de la croisée.

Since Anatole France’s description in Penguin Island of the scholar drowned by an avalanche of his own index cards, it has been hard to take them seriously.

Launched in 1924, Penguin paperbacks were designed to be affordable and easy to carry. Penguin founder Allen Lane wanted to make quality literature accessible to everyone. Today, vintage Penguins can be picked up cheaply and are easy to find. They also look impressive on any bookshelf thanks to their color scheme. Orange for fiction, green for crime, pink for travel and adventure, dark blue for biographies and memoirs, red for drama, purple for essays, and yellow for miscellaneous.

Having died in 1977, Nabokov never completed the book, and so all Penguin had to publish decades later came to, as the subtitle indicates, A Novel in Fragments. These “fragments” he wrote on 138 cards, and the book as published includes full-color reproductions that you can actually tear out and organize — and re-organize — for yourself, “complete with smudges, cross-outs, words scrawled out in Russian and French (he was trilingual) and annotated notes to himself about titles of chapters and key points he wants to make about his characters.”

E. V. Rieu's translation of the Odyssey (1946), which launched the series of Penguin Classics in Translation, and the Iliad (1950),

the series of The Last Interview

Galápagos penguins

Club Penguin

more design-driven.

Before I knew it, I found myself on a street I had never been to, in a city I had never been to, about to head into a room full of people I had never met before, all united by one simple symbol... 1 A penguin. An hour before, that penguin had seemed so inviting and friendly. It was a symbol that encompassed everything about the movement it represented, a movement that came together in spirit and mind to build a system that drove a new generation of technology and freedom... a movement that celebrated this drive by forming user groups in unknown streets, in unknown cities, and with unknown people.