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Originally Posted by HarryT
I'm very pleased to see that what appears to be the entire range of "Penguin Classics" is available in the UK iBook Store. These are my favourite range of "scholarly" editions of the classics, and they always have excellent introductions and notes, as well as authoritative versions of the text. I think I'll be buying quite a few of these!
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I like to read books without introductions or notes, because books speak for themselves. I did enjoy discussions in English lit classes in college, but that was more a give-and-take, with various perspectives. "Expert" analysis and such always seems suspect to me. Reminds me of a scene in "Annie Hall," in which Woody Allen overhears a blowhard professor analyzing an author's work, then imaginarily pulls out the actual author, who tells the blowhard that he has no clue what his work is about, lol. Once, I attended an author talk, at which the author said one of her books was being taught at one university with a high-brow analysis of its structure, which she said was flattering but wrong.