Question about buying the fancy annotated edition for our club's classic novel

I dropped $75 on the annotated 'Moby Dick' for our group read, and it totally saved me from getting lost in all the whaling details (the footnotes explained everything). But my friend says spending that much on one book is crazy when you can just look stuff up online. Did the special edition actually help your understanding, or was it a waste of cash?

4 comments

4 Comments

aliceharris1mo ago

Your friend says it's crazy, but that annotated version sounds like it was worth every penny.

kim_davis1mo ago

Wait, how much did it even cost?

jessica3311mo agoMost Upvoted

My buddy Mark got the annotated version last year. He said it was around eighty bucks, which made him pause, @kim_davis. But then he showed me all these notes in the margins from the author, explaining inside jokes and where ideas came from. It totally changed how he saw the story. He ended up reading it three times.

sean483d ago

Honestly I think the real value is how it makes you actually read slower and pay attention to what's going on. When you have to look stuff up online you're jumping in and out of the book and it breaks the flow, the footnotes keep you in the story. Plus you can write your own notes in the margins next to the author's notes and make it like a conversation with the book.