Books themselves aren’t going anywhere, or so I keep telling myself and fervently hoping despite all the evidence humanity’s collective brains are dissolving into a stew of slop and influence.
I’ve always preferred paperbacks, easier to read and carry. Hardcovers are for libraries or archives.
I think the only reason they are less popular is because of the year delayed release they have compared to hardcover. I would like to buy non-hardcover, but also not waiting a year for certain stories. I do avoid brand new stories for the most part for this reason.
They’re lighter, cost less, more economical, can take on a plane with less weight thoughts.
They should try parallel releases before just dropping them wholesale.
Edit sequential > parallel too early -.-
For a very long time I’ve realised that my ebook reader didn’t replace hardcover books for me. It just replaced those paperback books that you only intend to read once on an airplane; basically the bailiwick of mass-market-paperbacks.
So, sad as it is, it makes sense that paperbacks are seeing a steep decline. They’re the most susceptible to ebooks.
I like paperbacks, but I don’t have the physical room for physical books. I have a decent library, but it’s digital, and yes, it’s DRM free. Even with an iPhone, historically considered the more tightly controlled phone, they just work. I open the book on my Mac, then, with my iPhone on the same WiFi network, I open Books on the phone and it’s linked, one tap and my Mac beams it up to the iPhone somehow (Bluetooth? WiFi? Airdrop? Doesn’t matter, it works.) And I can read it on that. Bonus: Don’t need a bookmark. It remembers my place. I can digitally bookmark things but I never use that feature.
Note: Wife and I do have physical books. We just can’t keep getting more. She reads physical and electronic. I’m full digital.
Since you mainly read digital why not get an E-Ink device, battery lasts longer and it is easier on the eyes.
Because I don’t need another device. My iPhone battery lasts all day (it’s a 16 Pro Max). I do agree eInk is easier on the eyes.
I have thought about it. Whenever I think about something like an iPad, the rational part of my mind says “why not just get a reader instead?”. Well, the iPad would do more. Turns out, I don’t need (or even really want) either. Though, my wife has an iPad and it has manga and books on it, but I never feel the need to reach for it over my phone.
How else am I supposed get books barely holding together for a quarter a pop 😭
Grandmas dropping to their knees at this headline
This really upsets me. My preferred format has always been the mass market paperback. I can often fit them in a back pocket or cargo pocket, they fit better in my backpack, and they’re easier to hold in positions with one hand. They’re simply the superior format. I know they probably don’t look cool on coffee tables or whatever, but they also use less surface area on coffee tables. I hate floppy coffee table sized paperback books.
It’s fine, though, because most of what I read is old shit. I can keep buying my used mass market paperbacks. By the time the last ones disappear, I’ll probably be dead.
I think the worst part is the hardbacks produced today is just a bland onecolour things with at pretty dustcover. I want pretty books, that will last and not just an pretty extra cover!
The saddest thing to me, more than seeing paperbacks getting eradicated in order to allow people to waste more of their time on TikTok is to realize how few of the recently published books I’ve find worthy to own. There are none published last year and there aren’t that many published in the last 10 or 20 years either. Which is sad.
I own a decently-sized library but it’s mostly pre-90ish. Full disclaimer: most my books dates from the 19th century or much older but I still own a decent selection of books that were printed in the 20th century up to the early 00s. After that? Barely any fiction at all, those I will own are essays and things like that, some poetry too.
Which I find sad because it’s not like one day I decided I wanted to only own old novels. It just happens that I feel very little interest in those more recent fictions. I want to own a book when I know I will want to open it over and over again. If that is not the case, why bother with owning it? I can borrow the book from the public library and forget about it after I read it.
Also, the books I do own I want them to not fall apart after a single use… which is another sad reality with too any cheap and even not that cheap contemporary editions.
I would also like to know what are your favourite novels?
What are your favourites?
I don’t really read physical books; I only do audiobooks. But I like to have the physical versions of the books I really, really enjoyed. And if they are just for display effectively, I’d rather have the hard back.
@themachinestops Hey, your blog is great. I loved reading this piece, and the Pierce Brosnan one. So many good words!
You don’t really address why the small paperbacks have gone from production. I suppose it is that, when books are printed in small quantities and posted out individually to addresses across a very wide area, the overall difference in cost between a small book and a larger one becomes less significant. Still, I would love to be able to order small print-on-demand editions!
This is not my blog I saw it online and thought it was interesting. If you want my opinion I think it is because ebooks took the mass paperback market. I am the type who read books digitally and buys hard covers or paperbacks if I finish the book and like it. If you get a Kindle and Kobo you could get a lot of books the size of the mass paperback in one package. The only issue with ebooks is DRM, but there are ways to get them without it that I will not mention.
IDK, I still buy a lot of paper- and/or hardbacks, usually as gifts. They’re still cheap.
And not buying them for myself is not a sign of me dissolving into a stew of slop: we have an amazing library system so I don’t (want to) own too many books. And I recently got myself an e-reader and I’m very happy with it.
It is way past time for printed media to die.
Fuck off, I read all my books on paper cuz I’m old and my eyeballs like it.
I’m not trying to convince you otherwise, but how do your eyeballs like e-readers, compared?
Your pissing into the wind, and the paperback does fuck all for your eyes.
Says who?
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The vast majority of people of buy books to read…
