The Reading Experience
Folks give me crap about being a book snob. I’m not a book snob, I just have opinions about what kinds of books are better for long distance reading. And my opinions all fall back on the same thing, basically what provides the best reading experience.
Putting this in perspective, consider watching the latest 3+ hour long Peter Jackson remake of King Kong. You have a choice: see the movie in a nice megaplex-esque theater with padded, reclining seats and cup holders in the armrests, or see it in an ancient movie house with wooden seats and no legroom (for SLC residents, the old Tower Theater immediately comes to mind). Which situation would be better for the overall health of your coccyx, not to mention your circulation?
The experience is important. Deal with it.
With that out of the way, I present to you my not even slightly snobby thoughts on purchasing the right book.
The natural place to start is with the mass market paperback (hereafter referred to as “MMPB”). These are what most people think of when somebody says “paperback book;” they’re small, usually around 6-1/2″ x 4″ in size, and are generally the least expensive books you can purchase. I recall in my youth when I was first starting to do serious reading the quality of MMPB books was fairly good. The worst thing that would happen is the pages would turn brown after a few years. No big surprise there; the books were mostly printed on newsprint.
Now, MMPB books suck. I don’t mean kinda suck either. They REALLY suck.
The bindings on most MMPB are warped in such a way that the pages when open click like the lid from a bottle of Snapple. I don’t recall the last time I owned a truly flat MMPB. They don’t exist anymore. And the printing? It goes all the way into the binding so you have to practically fold the book backwards just to get all the words. All that, plus the cheap inks that rub off on your hands, make MMPB books thoroughly unappealing. I only purchase them when there is absolutely no other choice.
(By the way, they also smell really bad. Give one a whiff and tell me I’m wrong. Go ahead.)
Next up: hardcover books (hereafter referred to as “HC”). These guys have their place. I occasionally purchase collectible volumes from various authors (Stephen King, Clive Barker, Joe Lansdale, to name a few) and in such cases I believe HC books are justified. These are not only for reading; they’re show pieces, made to look impressive on a bookshelf and made to retain as much structure as possible to maximize resale value. The occasional first edition of a non-rare book is also justified in HC. I have gotten into the habit of snatching up a first UK edition of every new Harry Potter book since the fifth (Order of the Phoenix) and they’re only available in HC. Ditto for the occasional Stephen King first edition. Overall, HC books have their place.
However, I feel that reading HC books is not an enjoyable experience. They are heads and shoulders above MMPB books, but they’re also very heavy, hard to hold in one hand, and if you’re a two handed reader who reads while reclined you’ll probably end up with stigmata-esque bloody marks in the middle of your palms after the first evening of reading. I find that reading HC books while laying flat on my stomach is the easiest, but I can’t lay like that for too long before it starts bugging me.
I know, waaaaaaah… Refer back to the King Kong discussion earlier, then return.
Having said all of that, I’ll present the ultimate style of book for long distance reading: the trade paperback (hereafter referred to as “TPB”). They’re the larger paperback books that you see in bookstores. They’re slightly less expensive than HC books, occasionally about twice as expensive ad MMPB books, and they’re the shiznit as far as The Reading Experience is concerned.
They’re lighter than HC books. They’re printed on higher quality paper than MMPB books. The margins allow for handling the book without wiping over the ink. Not that it would matter, though, because the ink tends to be higher quality and typically does not rub off, at least not easily. The letterspacing and line spacing is sufficient to allow easy flow from one line to the next, unlike MMPB books which squeeze as much text into a page as possible (they’re going for cheap, after all). TPB books don’t leave stigmata marks on your hands, either. They can typically be held in one hand depending on the size of the book. And as icing on the cake, they look more dignified on a bookshelf than MMPB books.
(That last part isn’t really part of The Reading Experience, I know, but it does count for something.)
So, am I a snob? I don’t think so. I’ve read enough books from each of the forementioned categories to state with a fair degree of certainty that some books are much better for long distance reading than others.
It reminds me of the economies of scale that are used to create consumer electronics: the difference between a $0.95 capacitor and $1.05 capacitor may seem small when considered from a micro level, but multiply that by millions of units and all of a sudden the $0.10 difference is huge. The same applies to annoyances in The Reading Experience. Small things mean very little on a single page but they become bletcherously irritating after page 500.
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p> Okay, I’ll shut up now. I have the second Abarat book to read.]]>
