The Pickwick Club discussion
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Dombey and Son
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Dombey and Son: Reading Schedule and General Thoughts
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Gregory wrote: "Tristram wrote: "No, Jo, the edition does not really matter at all . . . "I would disagree that the edition you read "does not really matter at all."
For example I downloaded a free Kindle editi..."
By saying that the edition did not matter at all, I was referring to a question I took as being to the effect whether for the group read here a particular edition was required or not. Which is, of course, not the case. Hence, the edition does not matter at all.
Personally, I'd also normally choose a Penguin or an Oxford edition - but I don't think that that was Jo's question.
Tristram wrote: "Personally, I'd also normally choose a Penguin or an Oxford edition - "Both are good, though I generally find the Penguin a bit more reader-friendly and the Oxford a bit more scholarly. I also, no surprise but not because of my screen name but vice versa, like the Everyman editions, and Barnes and Noble did some very nice work with classics at one point. And the Wordsworth editions can be good. As can Modern Library. We're fortunate to have a wealth of good classic editions to choose from.
As an addendum to my comment on editions, more and more I'm choosing hardback classics which in Everyman or Modern Library or Barnes and Noble often aren't much more expensive than paperback, because I find that paperbacks are being made more cheaply every year and the bindings crack and they are harder for me to read with the deep gutter. When I re-read, I tend to replace the paperback editions I bought in my 20s and 30s when I was poor with quality hardback editions. Then I feel much better about passing them on to the next generation of family readers.
Another very good edition I have come across is the Library of America hardback edition. They only publish American authors - so they will probably never have a Dickens edition - but they are the edition to turn to when you want to complete your Hawthorne, your Washington Irving, your Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler etc. etc. Everyman have a very good and a complete collection of Chandler's short stories, for instance!
Tristram wrote: "Another very good edition I have come across is the Library of America hardback edition."I agree about the LoA. One thing to be aware of is that they come (or at least used to come) in two different ways -- one for subscribers, which have slipcases and no paper covers, and one for general purchasers, which have normal paper covers. They also have some of their books in paperback, which I think frankly defeats the intent of the collection to provide a permanent library of American literature.
They are also getting, IMO, somewhat afield of their original purpose and chasing sales with some fairly dubious publications, such as American Food Writing.
Everyman wrote: "Pip wrote: Thanks for the support, Tristram! Plus, I'd forgotten the Excel Argument for Y/M/D ;-)"WARNING: MATH AHEAD. KIM, TAKE A DETOUR.
When I started teaching computer programming back in ..."
I didn't know they had invented computers way, way, way back when you were young enough to still be teaching school.
Tristram wrote: " As far as I'm concerned, that is a very soothing thing, just like a Bach concerto."Nothing involving numbers is soothing.
Tristram wrote: "The Basque system is very useful, too, and logical."I don't know what the Basque system is, but if it is useful and logical, nevermind, I don't want to know.
Kim wrote: "I didn't know they had invented computers way, way, way back when you were young enough to still be teaching school. "I actually started teaching APL using an acoustic modem connection to an off-site IBM System 360 mini-computer and typing everything on a teletype type keyboard. We were an early project of an IBM fellow who was studying whether computers could have a place in high schools.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Syst...
A photo of the kind of keyboard we used is in the photo partway down the page of the computer at the Computer History Museum. What it doesn't show is that there was that green bar paper feeding through the roller like an old typewriter.
And here's a link to APL. It was actually a great programming language, but personal computers didn't use it, so it's mostly died out of use.
I left that school for another where we had Radio Shack Model 1 TRS-80 computers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80
They had a whopping 16K (that's kilobytes, not megabytes) of memory and stored programs on a cassette tape just like the ones that were state of the art in portable music listening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_...
Kim wrote: "Nothing involving numbers is soothing. "Well, one thing involving numbers is, you're right, totally unsoothing, and that's your calculation of the time left before Christmas. Highly stressful. You need totally to give it up. Totally.
Everyman wrote: "Kim wrote: "Nothing involving numbers is soothing. "Well, one thing involving numbers is, you're right, totally unsoothing, and that's your calculation of the time left before Christmas. Highly ..."
Good news! It is only 100 days 23 hours and 35 minutes until Christmas. That means tomorrow we will be under 100 days until the big day.
How Kim does math
Everyman wrote: "How Kim does math"
This is a flashback to my days in math class .. aaaagh!
Everyman wrote: "How Kim does math"
Exactly. All the reasons I hate math wrapped up in one comic strip. Now I should go look up what a square number is, but my head is starting to hurt just trying to remember all on my own. As to Y do we care - we don't.
Kim wrote: " Now I should go look up what a square number is,"I'll save you the trouble. A square number is a number with all the lines that write it at right angles. No curves -- those are curve numbers. So the square digits are 1, 4, and 7, and any other numbers made up only of those numbers, like 7,141.
Everyman wrote: "Kim wrote: " Now I should go look up what a square number is,"I'll save you the trouble. A square number is a number with all the lines that write it at right angles. No curves -- those are cur..."
I was in the kitchen earlier stirring my chicken pot-pie wondering as I did it what a square number was. And I decided it couldn't be a 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 0 because obviously they had curves in them. I had decided that the only possible square numbers were 1, 4, 7 or any combinations of them. It's creepy you thought so much like me. Not nearly as brilliant, but close.
Everyman wrote: "Kim wrote: " Now I should go look up what a square number is,"I'll save you the trouble. A square number is a number with all the lines that write it at right angles. No curves -- those are cur..."
Here. I spent all night working out this for you. Either that or I copied it off the internet and it makes absolutely no sense to me, you decide:
In mathematics, a square number or perfect square is an integer that is the square of an integer;[1] in other words, it is the product of some integer with itself. For example, 9 is a square number, since it can be written as 3 × 3.
The usual notation for the formula for the square of a number n is not the product n × n, but the equivalent exponentiation n2, usually pronounced as "n squared". The name square number comes from the name of the shape; see below.
Square numbers are non-negative. Another way of saying that a (non-negative) number is a square number, is that its square roots are again integers. For example, √9 = ±3, so 9 is a square number.
A positive integer that has no perfect square divisors except 1 is called square-free.
For a non-negative integer n, the nth square number is n2, with 02 = 0 being the 0-th one. The concept of square can be extended to some other number systems. If rational numbers are included, then a square is the ratio of two square integers, and, conversely, the ratio of two square integers is a square (e.g., 4/9 = (2/3)2).
Starting with 1, there are \lfloor \sqrt{m} \rfloor square numbers up to and including m, where the expression \lfloor x \rfloor represents the floor of the number x.
A round number is mathematically defined as the product of a considerable number of comparatively small factors[1] as compared to its neighbouring numbers, such as 24 = 2*2*2*3 (4 factors, as opposed to 3 factors for 27; 2 factors for 21, 22, 25, and 26; and 1 factor for 23).
However, a round number is informally considered to be an integer that ends with one or more zeroes (0), such as 1,000, 1,500,000, etc., and a number ending in 5 might be considered in a way more "round" than one ending in neither 0 nor 5. Even a non-integer such as 2.5 might be seen as more round than, say, 2.497 (especially if written as 2.500).
When a quantity is known only to a low precision, a calculation that gives a non-round number is often rounded in order to avoid giving a false impression of accuracy.
Numbers can also be considered "round" in numbering systems other than decimal (base 10). For example, the number 1024 would not be considered "round" in decimal, but the same number ends with a zero in several other numbering systems including binary (base 2: 10000000000), octal (base 8: 2000), and hexadecimal (base 16: 400).
It's funny that what Kim and Everyman had agreed on concerning square numbers is almost precisely what I was taught way back when, in the bogs of Ireland, nevertheless, when counting objects, not only did the numbers have to be square ... 1, 4, 7. ....but the items had to be square in shape. I'm pretty sure that the people counting had to be square too.
Kim wrote: "Here. I spent all night working out this for you. ."It was a more productive use of your time than planning your Scrooge Day decorations would have been. And who knows -- it's possible that you learned something!
Everyman wrote: "Kim wrote: "Here. I spent all night working out this for you. ."It was a more productive use of your time than planning your Scrooge Day decorations would have been. And who knows -- it's possi..."
Do me a favor. Go and ask your wife to hit you for me. A few times.
Kim wrote: "Do me a favor. Go and ask your wife to hit you for me. A few times. "She says if you want me hit, you'll have to come out here and do it yourself.
Everyman wrote: "Kim wrote: "Do me a favor. Go and ask your wife to hit you for me. A few times. "She says if you want me hit, you'll have to come out here and do it yourself."
Oh an invitation! That's so sweet! I'll start repacking my bags any day now. Any day after Christmas that is. There is someone nice and sweet and kind in your house after all!!! And to think, she's stayed married to you for over 30 years, who'd have guessed it. Grump. :-}
Everyman wrote: "They are also getting, IMO, somewhat afield of their original purpose and chasing sales with some fairly dubious publications, such as American Food Writing." Thanks to you I just spent 30 minutes or so of my life reading what the book "American Food Writing" could be, and I'll never have those 30 minutes back again, but I now know what Henry David Thoreau thought on the delights of watermelon; Herman Melville, has a mouth-watering chapter on clam chowder; H. L. Mencken on the hot dog; M.F.K. Fisher in praise of the oyster; Ralph Ellison on the irresistible appeal of baked yam; William Styron on Southern fried chicken. It has been called a "groundbreaking new anthology". Sounds like a cookbook. I've never read a cookbook. I'm not starting now. :-}
Oh, I don't really know what Thoreau thought of the watermelon, but I know where to look if I ever want to know.
I just realized that I never posted the Cover for the monthly parts of Dombey, so here it is:
Cover for the monthly parts
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
1846
Dickens's Dombey and Son
Thanks Gregory, Everyman, and Tristram! I usually buy the Oxford or Penguin editions and occasionally a Modern Library. These editions have easy-to-read print (I'm very far-sighted) and are easy to hold open--I have arthritis in my thumbs-- Other editions (Signet and Bantam) have microscopic print that is so crammed on a page that I have a headache after reading one paragraph.
Jo wrote: "Thanks Gregory, Everyman, and Tristram! I usually buy the Oxford or Penguin editions and occasionally a Modern Library. These editions have easy-to-read print (I'm very far-sighted) and are easy t..."You're right, Jo: A lot of the reading fun depends on the edition you have got in front of you!
Jo wrote: "Thanks Gregory, Everyman, and Tristram! I usually buy the Oxford or Penguin editions and occasionally a Modern Library. These editions have easy-to-read print (I'm very far-sighted) and are easy t..."Have you thought about a Kindle? The basic model weighs less than a paperback (so less hand strain), and you can set your own print size to what your eyes are comfortable with.
As an added bonus, most popular public domain works (anything before 1921 or so) are available in free editions.
Chris wrote: "As an added bonus, most popular public domain works (anything before 1921 or so) are available in free editions. "And an increasing number of libraries are "lending" e-text versions of current, and some not so current, books. You can download them and read them on your Kindle or Nook or other e-reader, and they expire usually after 21 days, but you can download them again if nobody has them on hold. For a one-time purchase you can have free reading for the rest of your life without ever leaving home.
Plus many libraries also allow you to download audio books to borrow.
I love those services. Use them all the time.
Lindsay wrote: "I have Kindle Unlimited!!!pretty much all the classics including Dickens are included with
Professional Narration..."
Most of the reviews of this I've seen suggest that it doesn't save most users money. Is that your experience (realizing that almost all the classic titles are free anyhow), or have you worked out the costs and figured out that it saves you money?
I can get almost all the books I want through either Gutenberg or my library's e-book program, or can borrow them through Interlibrary Loan, so I'm buying many fewer books today, and most of those are ones not on the Kindle Unlimited list, such as reference works, new translations of foreign titles, etc.
Boo to work. I'm getting further and further behind with Dombey and Son thanks to work. I'm hoping I might actually be able to catch up by the end of this year!
Love the frontispiece thanks Kim! So many incidents from the story in there.
I'll join into your boo too work, Kate, simply because at the moment I've got so much to do that I can hardly really participate in the discussions although I'm still able to keep reading. Since I work a lot in front of the computer, though, the temptation to look in here once in a while is rather great, and so I neither get my work done nor do I feel I say everything I want to say in the discussions ;-)Who invented work, anyway?
Or maybe, Morlocks?
In that case I'll be an Eloi, sit around, play, and eat fruit all day - but just hide when the siren sounds ... :D
Ooh now that is a conundrum. I'd prefer to be an Eloi as long as I didn't get in the way of a hungry Morlock. Maybe I'll stick with sadists; at least you know where you are with them and there's no underground overground wombling free ... ;-)
At least I'm not alone there then, Tristram! Trust us teachers. LOL.
Tristram wrote: "Who invented work, anyway?" Probably teachers and lawyers.
Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: "Who invented work, anyway?" Probably teachers and lawyers."
Maybe teachers invented it, but students more often than not circumvent it.
Ahh...OK, thanks! I figured that there would be lots more to come after that, since it happens relatively early in the book. Still, it seemed a major thing and I wished I had not known...