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Hardback vs paperback


Maureen

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Jumping in here, if you don't mind.

I prefer a paperback. I actually like the book to show signs of wear. It think it's lovely that you can see the book has been read and loved or hated or felt something about. I guess that's because most hardbacks in my childhood were old ones, so they evidently showed some signs of wear. For me a new shiny book is just so soulless. There's no life, no emotion. Just words on paper. It's what that words make us feel that truly create the story.

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Paperbacks are most certainly easier to deal with but I just love hardbacks. The majority of my books though are paperbacks, unless I know I really love the book and would invest in the hardback. My favourite books would be kept as hardbacks.

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Nearly all my books come from the library, my budget hardly ever stretches to even charity shop prices. As to hardback vs paperback, I usually prefer hardback. I find them easier to read in bed (lying on my side they don't fall on face). I also like to prop them open and knit while I read, which I find harder to do with paperbacks. But I definitely prefer paperbacks in the bath. Much lighter and easier to handle.

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I was digging through old threads, and found this one! I wasn't around when this thread was made, so now I can make a reply to it (rather lengthy...).

 

I much prefer paperbacks over hardbacks. My favourite size is what I call a 'medium size paperback'. It's a common one, it's normally around 19 - 20 cm tall (at least, if I believe online websites like Amazon and Bol.com, I haven't actually measured such a thing myself). Smaller paperbacks (17-18 cm tall; I believe sometimes called mass market paperbacks?) are okay also though I find myself preferring the medium size lately.

 

I don't have a problem with a book having a thicker cover, but I hate dust jackets. I don't like it when the cover of the book (the image that should be on the front of the book), is not on the cover of the book (the thicker piece of paper wrapped around the pages). The dust jacket always annoys me during reading, but I don't want to take it off because then the book looks generally ugly and not at all like the cover it should have. I want the cover to be the cover of the book, and not that the cover is on a piece of paper wrapped around the book.

 

I do own some hardcovers with dust jacket, which I bought cheaply many years ago or because the book was never available in paperback. I have a number of books that have a hard cover, but come without a dust jacket (I don't know if there is a proper name for that, sources on the internet seem to disagree on the name, so). It seems more common in the Netherlands than with books in English, and it's more common with children's and YA books. A lot of mine are children's books. Others I own are ex-library books, as in the Netherlands most library books have hard covers without a dust jacket (the image is on the cover). Sometimes the book was originally a hardcover (with dust jacket), sometimes a paperback. The majority of my collection though are paperbacks.

 

I find it much easier to read a paperback. Large and heavy books are hard for me to read with my small hands (but they are in proportion to the rest of me, I'm just short!), I feel much more comfortable reading a medium or small size paperback and not be struggling with the dust jacket. Paperbacks are also easier to take with you and they look good in my opinion. I much prefer a trade (/ a big) paperback over a hardcover with dust jacket, though I personally don't often buy trade paperbacks because I find the medium size paperback much more comfortable. There's the price too of course, hardcovers are generally more expensive, but even if they were priced the same I'd still want the medium or small size paperback.

 

What annoys me though is when you have to wait some time before a new release in hardcover, is out in paperback. I want to have new releases by my many favourite authors as soon as they're out in paperback, but sometimes it can be a long wait (I do wait!). It's also hard to find them, as there doesn't seem to be an easy way to easily see new paperback releases by my favourite authors. I've subscribed to a number of (author) newsletters but paperbacks aren't often mentioned. I like to pre-order them a lot of the time, before their release date, so I have them as soon as they're released, but sometimes they don't show up until a little while before release (on the site(s) I usually order from), so I might not know until 2 months after. What I try to do is every once in a while to search for the new releases by all my favourite authors, but since I have a lot of them, this takes a while. Sometimes I browse all new releases and set the price to be below a certain price point, so that hopefully it mostly shows new paperbacks and not hardcovers. It shows all genres though, as I read from multiple genres I find it easier to just browse all the genres rather than browsing many different genres seperately. I've looked around but there don't seem to be many newsletters dedicated to paperback releases. On rare occasion the medium size paperback is released alongside the hardcover (for example, Carry On by Rainbow Rowell or The Illuminae Files 2: Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. In this case I find it especially important to pre-order the paperback, so that they know I very much appreciate being able to read the book in paperback at the same time as other people read the hardcover.

 

I could hardly believe it when, earlier in this thread many years ago, there was an article linked to the disappearance of hardcovers. Nowadays it seems that hardcovers seem more popular than paperbacks, for example on BookTube most people (that I (used to) follow, almost always buy the hardcovers).

 

tl;dr: Preference of paperbooks: 1) medium size paperback, 2) small size paperback, 3) hardcovers without a dust jacket with the image of the front on the actual cover, ∞) hardcovers with dust jackets (+ e-books)

 

E-books of course are a whole other thing, but we already have a thread for the discussion on e-books vs. physical books (here, here and here), so I won't go into that much right now. I'm not keen on e-books, unless it's a short story or novella or book otherwise not available as a paperbook / paperback. I can only stand to read on my Kindle for shorter periods of time.

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Totally with you Athena - I don't really like hardbacks for the same reasons - too big/heavy and of course more expensive!  I have bought an occasional hardback if it's looking like it won't be out in paperback, I don't do Kindle either.  Paperbacks have got bigger in the UK and some mass market books are now almost the same size as the trade paperbacks (and similar price too).  And yes it seems so long before a book is published in paperback sometimes, but I suppose there's not much any of us can do about it.

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I feel the same way! A few years ago I used to think hardbacks were the be all and end all (mostly because of what BookTube was preaching to me haha) but fortunately I was never rich enough to buy many :D I must admit, I think hardbacks are usually prettier on the shelf, but just paperbacks are just so much more practical, and they feel nicer in your hand. I do have a few hardbacks which I love as well, and I don't mind reading one from time to time, but in general I definitely prefer paperbacks.

The only exception would be my German Harry Potter editions, they're the kind of hardbacks that don't have a dustjacket but the (horrendously ugly but incredibly nostalgic) covers printed onto the actual book, and I couldn't imagine ever reading a German Harry Potter book in paperback format.

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I prefer whatever fits better in my library. I'm not kidding. Most of my books are paperback though with the occasional hardcover here and there. I am more interested in the quality of the paper itself and the translation if it's the case. 

 

Some of my books come with a double cover, where the first one is just there to protect the original cover but I generally take very good care of books and it does not make much of a difference. 

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Depends on the book. Anything I think might be disposable, paperback is OK. Most of my fiction (non-classic) is this. Otherwise, I prefer hardback - for instance most of my history is hardback. I hate the way paperback books' spines crack up, I hate creased covers, especially when they are sold like that, but find it even more annoying if a cover gets crease damaged after purchase. They're overall more vulnerable to wear and tear. Paperback print size is too variable, and vulnerable to being too small (especially in non-fiction books). Too often the gutters of paperbacks are too narrow, and one's obliged to read into the gutter - ugh! As a result of all this, I find paperbacks far less portable than hardbacks which, whilst more cumbersome, are more robust (I take off the dustcovers for transport and slip my hardbacks into a temporary cover). The only advantages of paperbacks I find is that (a) cover designs are sometimes more exciting and {b} they're cheaper. (My preferred combination is a hardback and a Kindle version for travelling).

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I posted a while back about how I prefer paperbacks and that's still the case.  I do buy the odd hardback if I can't wait for the paperback edition to come out and the ebook price seems too high while it's only out in hardback, but if I'm buying a physical book, it'll be paperback 95% of the time.

 

As much as I love books, and we have hundreds if not thousands, I'm not a big re-reader and I'm not particularly bothered about "owning" the book as such, it's the contents that are important to me, not the aesthetic of the book as a form in itself.  Hardbacks are cumbersome to read, far less portable and take up more space on the shelf, so they really are a last resort for me.  Plus, most books will be a one time only read for me, so most will probably go to the charity shop for others, so there seems little point in spending more money on an inconvenient format only to give it away after I've read it.

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 I prefer paperbacks, personally. I have quite a few old books, and haven't noticed that hardcovers hold up any better over time as far as paper quality and such. If you're not the type to subject your books to things that will cause the paper covers to get bent, I don't see that hardcovers are any advantage in that sense. They also don't have the cover illustration printed onto the front cover, it's on a separate dust jacket, which is far more fragile than the thick paper of a paperback. My shabbiest looking books are hardcovers with jacked up dust jackets. The real answer, though, is that I literally do not care. Whatever's cheapest. The only strong feeling I have about the physical form of books is deckled edges, which are monumentally stupid and need to stop immediately. 

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The only strong feeling I have about the physical form of books is deckled edges, which are monumentally stupid and need to stop immediately.

I don't like deckled edges at all either! It was only recently that I found out that that's what it's called.

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I have always preferred paperbacks, and these are certainly the ones that I tend to purchase the most of for various reasons; mainly the fact that they are cheaper, easier to store/shelve, and I have always found them much easier to read due to the size and weight of them. However, as I have gotten older and now find myself suffering from arthritis in my hands, I’m beginning to prefer hardbacks over paperbacks which is not something I thought I would ever say. Yes, they’re heavier but I find laying it on my lap or on a table is much preferable when I have a flare up than having to physically hold a book which I would need to do with a paperback.

 

On 28/02/2017 at 5:43 PM, Athena said:

What annoys me though is when you have to wait some time before a new release in hardcover, is out in paperback.

 

This is something that annoys me too; I hate having to wait.

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