Hradzka rants about one of my pet peeves: large format paperbacks and a new annoying size, just slightly larger than a normal paperback. I haven’t noticed the latter yet but in the last year or two I’ve seen quite a few books that I must read that are available only in hardback or those cumbersome hardback-sized paperbacks.

I can understand publishers wanting to find ways to make more money, especially on genre novels that won’t sell as many copies as mainstream fiction but it seems to me they could find some way to do it that doesn’t annoy readers and make us buy even fewer books. I’ve been waiting impatiently for over a year for China Mieville’s Iron Council to come out in normal size paperback. (Number One Son didn’t wait so I’ve just started reading it in that annoying, cumbersome, nearly-impossible-to-read-in-bed size.)

You know what I’d like to see? Compact hardbacks – hardback books the exact size of normal paperbacks. That’s something for which I would be willing to shell out a few more dollars.