Why do people buy these Penguin Clothbound Classics?
This is a nifty combo video where I talk briefly about the third of my literary white whales - Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. For the entire LWW backlog see here: Four Literary White Whales - • Four Literary White Whales Reviewing 1984 by George Orwell - • Literary White Whales UPDATE - 1984 Reviewing Bleak House by Charles Dickens - • Literary White Whales Update - Bleak House I completely forgot to talk about the main thing about Vanity Fair which I meant to bring up and that is the connection between this wonderful novel and Tolstoy's War & Peace. I couldn't help but think that some of the action scenes played out in fairly similar ways. Turns out Tolstoy was a big fan of Vanity Fair. I love that about these two chunkers. Anyway, about the whole Penguin Clothbound Classic thing. Having read one which I got for free, I can't imagine ever paying full price to read one of these editions again. They don't stand up to the normal wear and tear of a single reading and they're way overpriced for something you can pick up anywhere for a quarter of the cost or even less. What do you think?

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