[BlueTemplar]

Haha, I knew it ! Let me guess, you read the "big single dark brown book" version too ? It might be just the children nostalgia though... (Had the same reaction to the movies initially !) I've also seen much later a translation that seemed to be designed "for kids" and that seemed godawful to me !

[filoleg]

Unfortunately, I think I might have read the newer translation. I don't have it anymore, but iirc I got the book around 2005-2006, and it might have been brown underneath, but it had that glossy art cover over it that I took off only once to check out how it looked without it.

[BlueTemplar]

Hah, completely forgot about that, it got lost pretty quickly...