20 Matching Annotations
  1. Jun 2024
    1. 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.

      Publishers that are good in general, for older material: * Penguin Classics * Oxford World Classics * Norton Critical Editions * Broadview Editions

  2. May 2024
    1. traffic was increasing to sites that had previously been suppressed by Google Search’s “Penguin” update from 2012

      [[penguin]] allegedly rolled back to some extent

  3. Apr 2024
    1. Bei einer Hitzewelle in der Antarktis lag die Temperatur 38,5° über dem Durchschnittswert. Dieser enorm hohe Wert schockiert Forschende und ist bisher nicht erklärbar. Der Guardian stellt den Kontext ausführlich dar und hat dazu mehrere Fachleute befragt. Eine neue Publikation spricht von einem regime shift beim antarktischen Sommer-Meereis. Er gefährdet u.a. den Krill und die Kolonien der Kaiserpinguine. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/06/simply-mind-boggling-world-record-temperature-jump-in-antarctic-raises-fears-of-catastrophe

      Studie: https://journals.ametsoc.org/configurable/content/journals$002fclim$002f37$002f7$002fJCLI-D-23-0479.1.xml?t:ac=journals%24002fclim%24002f37%24002f7%24002fJCLI-D-23-0479.1.xml

  4. Jan 2024
  5. Aug 2023
  6. Jul 2023
    1. 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.

      Initial print fun of the P/V translation of Anna Karenina was 32,000 copies which the publisher hoped would push other translations to the margins. Then Oprah picked it up for her book club... and the publisher ordered another printing of 800,000 copies.

  7. Nov 2022
    1. 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.

      in relation to the character in the satire Penguin Island by Anatole France who dies by zettelkasten

      Naturally a tapir is the nocturnal hoofed mammal with a stout body, sturdy limbs, and a short flexible proboscis, native to the forests of tropical America and Malaysia.

      So the name Fulgence Tapir is essentially "a sparkling foraging pig".

    1. 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

      Surely the fault of that savant was not neglect, but over-confidence in the virtue of the fiche [index card], and the true moral is that there is no necessary salvation in the fiche and the card-index [aka zettelkasten].

      Here the author is referencing part of the preface of Anatole France's book Penguin Island (1908) where a scholar drowns in a whirlpool of index cards.

      see: https://hypothes.is/a/rYHu0FQZEe2mm4_z4pvWLw

    2. T., T. F., A. F. P., E. R. A., H. E. E., R. C., E. L. W., F. J. C. H., and E. J. C. “Short Notices.” History 8, no. 31 (1923): 231–37.

  8. Oct 2022
    1. 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.

      France, Anatole. L’Île Des Pingouins. Project Gutenberg 8524. 1908. Reprint, Project Gutenberg, 2005. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8524/pg8524.html

      Death by Zettelkasten!!

      (Coming soon to a theater near you...)

      In the preface to the novel Penguin Island (L'Île des Pingouins. Calmann-Lévy, 1908) by Nobel prize laureate Anatole France, a scholar is drowned by an avalanche of index cards which formed a gigantic whirlpool streaming out of his card index (Zettelkasten).

      Link to: Historian Keith Thomas has indicated that he finds it hard to take using index cards for excerpting and research seriously as a result of reading this passage in the satire Penguin Island.<br /> https://hypothes.is/a/rKAvtlQCEe2jtzP3LmPlsA


      Translation via: France, Anatole. Penguin Island. Translated by Arthur William Evans. 8th ed. 1908. Reprint, New York, NY, USA: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1922. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Penguin_Island/6UpWAvkPQaEC?hl=en&gbpv=0

      Small changes in the translation by me, comprising only adding the word "index" in front of the occurrences of card to better represent the historical idea of fiches used by scholars in the late 1800s and early 1900s, are indicated in brackets.

      The walls of the study, the floor, and even the ceiling were loaded with overflowing bundles, paste board boxes swollen beyond measure, boxes in which were compressed an innumerable multitude of small [index] cards covered with writing. I beheld in admiration mingled with terror the cataracts of erudition that threatened to burst forth.

      “Master,” said I in feeling tones, “I throw myself upon your kindness and your knowledge, both of which are inexhaustible. Would you consent to guide me in my arduous researches into the origins of Penguin art?"

      “Sir," answered the Master, “I possess all art, you understand me, all art, on [index] cards classed alphabetically and in order of subjects. I consider it my duty to place at your disposal all that relates to the Penguins. Get on that ladder and take out that box you see above. You will find in it everything you require.”

      I tremblingly obeyed. But scarcely had I opened the fatal box than some blue [index] cards escaped from it, and slipping through my fingers, began to rain down.

      Almost immediately, acting in sympathy, the neighbouring boxes opened, and there flowed streams of pink, green, and white [index] cards, and by degrees, from all the boxes, differently coloured [index] cards were poured out murmuring like a waterfall on a mountain-side in April. In a minute they covered the floor with a thick layer of paper. Issuing from their in exhaustible reservoirs with a roar that continually grew in force, each second increased the vehemence of their torrential fall. Swamped up to the knees in cards, Fulgence Tapir observed the cataclysm with attentive nose. He recognised its cause and grew pale with fright.

      “ What a mass of art! ” he exclaimed.

      I called to him and leaned forward to help him mount the ladder which bent under the shower. It was too late. Overwhelmed, desperate, pitiable, his velvet smoking-cap and his gold-mounted spectacles having fallen from him, he vainly opposed his short arms to the flood which had now mounted to his arm-pits . Suddenly a terrible spurt of [index] cards arose and enveloped him in a gigantic whirlpool. During the space of a second I could see in the gulf the shining skull and little fat hands of the scholar; then it closed up and the deluge kept on pouring over what was silence and immobility. In dread lest I in my turn should be swallowed up ladder and all I made my escape through the topmost pane of the window.

    1. 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.

      In Penguin Island, Anatole France describes a scholar drowned by an avalanche of their own index cards!

  9. Aug 2022
    1. 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.
  10. Apr 2022
    1. 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.”

      Vladimir Nabokov died in 1977 leaving an unfinished manuscript in note card form for the novel The Original of Laura. Penguin later published the incomplete novel with in 2012 with the subtitle A Novel in Fragments. Unlike most manuscripts written or typewritten on larger paper, this one came in the form of 138 index cards. Penguin's published version recreated these cards in full-color reproductions including the smudges, scribbles, scrawlings, strikeouts, and annotations in English, French, and Russian. Perforated, one could tear the cards out of the book and reorganize in any way they saw fit or even potentially add their own cards to finish the novel that Nabokov couldn't.


      Link to the idea behind Cain’s Jawbone by Edward Powys Mathers which had a different conceit, but a similar publishing form.

  11. Nov 2021
  12. Feb 2020
  13. Dec 2018
  14. Oct 2018
  15. May 2018
    1. more design-driven.

      As someone who loves design (especially to do with books and texts (e.g. Coralie Bickford-Smith's work with Penguin Publishing)), this is very interesting to me. This may not have to do with digital humanities per say, but the interplay of physical books (especially publishing companies and their need to $compete$ with digital texts) with digital modes of communication has led to the design of more aesthetically pleasing book designs. This idea makes me think that maybe books are viewed as elitist forms, and digital texts are viewed as 'lower' forms.

  16. Feb 2014
    1. 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.