Doorstops
Quote of the day: “At all times and in all circumstances, all over the globe, there exists a conspiracy, framed by nature herself, of all the mediocre, inferior, and dull minds against intellect and understanding.” –Arthur Schopenhauer
As long as I’m complaining about books, I should mention that I hate hardcovers. I want a nice little book I can read in bed, not something big enough to brain burglers. I don’t want to risk a hernia every time I visit the library. I have plenty of lovely old hardcovers that are barely larger than paperbacks, so why are all the new ones so big? So the publisher can charge three times as much for them?
I’ve seen some small hardcovers lately - The Girl Who Played Go was so short that it couldn’t have filled the standard super-sized hardcover, but Ombria in Shadow was just the right size. Unfortunately the hulking masses are still the vast majority. Someday there will be a nice e-book format (sans glowing screens), and all those cement-block-sized books will be recycled into…cement blocks.