Why I don't buy hard-back books anymore.

Let me start by saying that I love hard-back books. I love the way they look on the bookshelf. I love the heft of them in my hand, the timelessness, the I'll-be-here-when-you-want-to-read-me-again-ness of them. I enjoy that it's darn difficult to break the spine on a hard-back book whose pages have been stitched together - bound solidly, that the pages are smooth and bright and that the print is clear and vibrant and that the font is usually a bit more unique and well-spaced.

Now, all of that said, I do not buy them anymore (or at least very rarely). Because? It's not because of the cost. Well, not entirely. Previously, I had counted the cost as an investment in quality materials that would last.

But, over the last 5-10 years (maybe longer but this is when I started noticing), the hard-back book has changed. The bindings are glued together (one of my harry potters fell apart the first week I owned it, I mean the book split and separated and fell out of the binding - and I TAKE CARE OF my books!) and the paper is not much better quality than is currently found in a standard paper-back.

In order to mass-produce paperbacks, the paper produced is cheap and has a relatively high acid content. That means that, in a few years, the pages will begin to yellow and, after several more years, they will crack and break. I accept that. I understand that. I'm willing to pay $5-6 dollars for that.

BUT, I am NOT willing to plonk down $25-30 for a hard-back book with the same (or not much better) cheap-o paper!

So, those books I really, really want to read that come out in hardback first and I have to wait another 6 months to a year for the paper-back version? Unless it's good paper (ok, I can forgive the not-stitched-in binding - I know that's costly), I simply WILL NOT buy it.

I, instead, take myself off to my wonderful local library and get to read the story for free - FOR FREE - where before, I would have been willing to pay that $25-30.

(We won't talk about the one time I sat down in a book store and read the whole novel that afternoon while sipping on chai tea. Well, why else do they put the chairs there?)