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https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/end-mass-market-pap...

These are more generically known as ‘mass market paperbacks’ - and are sadly basically extinct:

Last year, ReaderLink, the country's largest distributor of books to airports, pharmacies and big-box stores, announced that it would no longer carry mass markets. The books can still be found in some places, but "as a format, I would say it's pretty much over," Ivan Held, the president of publishing imprints Putnam, Dutton and Berkley, said to the Times.

I too mourn them - much more of a convenient size than the now ubiquitous ‘trade paperback’ - but we’re obviously in a small minority.

At this point if you don't care at all for the book itself as an object just buy an xteink-x3 with CrossPoint or PocketBook then install Koreader.

I don't think cutting it up means he doesn't care about the book when he's going to the trouble of rebinding the pieces so he can keep reading on paper.

At that rate, you might as well buy and use an e-reader instead. It really doesn't get any more comfortable in the hands than a light device like a Kobo or whatever one you prefer.

https://www.davisr.me/projects/books/

I chop my books and read them on my reMarkable tablet. It really doesn't get any better.

That's cool and all, but I generally prefer my text reflowable, and find PDF reading on any not-huge e-reader to be a pain in the ass. It's worth it for things that are rich in figures and formatting (like House of Leaves, many textbooks, comics and manga, etc), but for the typical novel or non-fiction book, I really do want just text and the most minimal formatting and layout instructions possible, so I can configure to my own comfort, not to whatever the publisher has decided they want me to see.

You must have forgotten the point of this thread was about chopping books.

What do you do with the pages of the book once you’ve scanned it?

I somewhat liked my Kobo except for how much Rakuten kept getting more aggressive with forcing their environment on me. And then my Kobo decided to wipe and reset itself on its own, losing all of my bookmarks and other data.

Nice hardware concept, completely unacceptable software.

[1] https://koreader.rocks/

You should check out KOReader [1], an OSS alternative interface software for ereaders. I have it installed on my kobo and I couldn't be happier with it.

My grievance is mainly with the overall firmware/software that has such deep control over storage and all. I've tried KOReader and Plato, but it's just replacing the document reader.

Amongst the big ereader brands, Kobo is actually the nicest in terms of letting users hack them.

And you don't even have to hold it open and mess with bookmarks which at least to me was always super annoying. And the built in lamp, chapter search and dictionary. And single tap page forward and back. Physical books are beyond obsolete imho.

mess with bookmarks

I’ve have had enough bookmarks fall out of the book that I have changed my strategy. Instead of using a bookmark I take a photo of the last page I was reading before closing the book. I then add the photo to favourites so it’s easier to find. And then later when I continue to read, I check in my camera roll to see what page I was on. With the current book I am reading I also like to end on the end of a chapter when I can. Easy to remember that next time I will start reading chapter 5 or whatever. And if I don’t have time or energy to read to the end of a chapter I still try to remember what page number I am on, just in case my phone runs out of battery and I want to continue reading.

Well that's certainly the most ridiculous way of keeping track I've ever heard of :D Not only do you always have to scroll through the pages to find the right one, you also have to mess with your phone a bit first.

56m agoHN ↗

I would assume that the photo includes the page number.

In middle and high school when I was reading my way through my parents' fantasy and scifi collection, I got to a point where I'd just make a note of the page number when I set the book down and was able to recall it next time I sat down to read. I don't remember if I kept that up through college, but I've been reading pretty much exclusively on a kindle since 2010 or so.

[0] https://www.google.com/search?udm=2&q=%E6%9B%B8%E7%B1%8D%E5%...

I found that Japanese book sales cards [0] work very reliably as bookmarks and don’t fall out. One can easily make them oneself out of thin, preferably non-smooth (friction-y) paper, by folding a strip in two and cutting out a lip for easier handling. In use they look like this [1]. They hold better due to being two strips clasping a book page, and due the static friction of the paper. Because they don’t stick out of the book (the lip bends and can fold) like regular (often glossy) thick-paper bookmarks often do, they also don’t “catch” and risk getting pulled out that way.

[1] https://imgcp.aacdn.jp/img-a/800/auto/aa/gm/article/4/1/4/9/...

This is great until you want to flick back quickly to reference something earlier in the book where you can't quite remember the wording but you remember the rough context.

So many books not available as epub...

I hate this. Of course it's your property, you do what you want with it. Do your own illustrations, annotate with abandon, get out the red pen for editing practise... But for me, I love nothing more than reading a book so big that I practically live in it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kat%C3%B3_Lomb

I recently wanted to try one of Kató Lomb's [1][2] preferred language-learning methods: getting a book in a foreign language and reading it (and re-reading it), figuring out words and phrases as if it's a big puzzle and writing them in the margins. From her book "How I Learn Languages" (1970):

I recommend buying your own books for language learning. They can be spiced with underlines, question marks, and exclamation points; they can be thumbed and dog-eared, plucked to their essential core, and annotated so that they become a mirror of yourself.

What shall you write in the margins? Only the forms and phrases you have understood and figured out from the context.

Ignore what you can’t immediately understand. If a word is important, it will occur several times and explain itself anyway. Base your progress on the known, not the un- known. The more you read, the more phrases you will write in the margins. The relationship that develops between you and the knowledge you obtain will be much deeper than if you had consulted the dictionary automatically. The sense of achievement provides you with an emotional-affective charge: You have sprung open a lock; you have solved a little puzzle.

I can't really bring myself to write in the books themselves though, so I've been using separate paper. It feels wrong, even in a cheap book, like I'm defiling it.

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Kat%C3%B3+Lomb

I'm no polyglot, but talking and reading are very different skills.

My personal working theory:

Native speakers learn to speak first, then they learn to read and write.

From talking with high-level ESOL speakers, those that learned from written material have some very strange patterns of mistakes you can hear in their English - where they've programmed their pronunciation incorrectly very early on with basic mistakes.

Although English is an outlier here. Because English native speakers learn lots of different ways to manage how speaking and spelling are different. Plus because making speaking mistakes after learning words in books is such a social status mistake.

Personally I think if you want to learn a language, the ideal is with someone who corrects all mistakes, as though one is a baby. Although it is difficult to find this even when one can spend months in a foreign country. Not everyone feels comfortable correcting an adult.

The people that have learned English that I have spoken with that are the best all have a common trait: they've lived in a country and they MIMIC. The most amazing was a hippy Japanese guy: I remember one sentence where he shifted in the middle from broad East London to a strong Aussie accent due to where he learned the words.

I learnt conversational Spanish when I was 30. Next attempt will be 2-3 months immersed Korean as a middle aged guy so I'm looking forward to trying out my opinions!

I learned French mostly through conversation and immersion. This next language is pretty simple phonologically, and I'm not concerned about having a good accent in it, so the reading-puzzle route is something interesting to try.

Yeah, why you want to know the language strongly matters.

My natural bent is strongly focused on reading and words. Learning by talking and mimicking is not my strength at all.

I suspect that is why I've noticed the pattern that natural mimickers are the ideal language learners (who I would like to emulate).

Although my beliefs are incoherent... I want software that starts with substituted latin letters into a Korean layout that slowly morphs into Korean (maybe choosing words carefully that have been taken from English).

A la Meihem In Ce Klasrum by Dolton Edwards: https://www.ecphorizer.com/EPS/site_page.php?issue=7&page=29

I would never do this normally, but when I walked the Camino Primitivo the guidebook contained other routes so was more than twice as big as it needed to. Weight matters so I tore out the bit I needed.

I read most fiction these days on my Kobo. I prefer physical volumes when I'm sitting at a desk.

I came to a similar realization recently. I used to care so much about how pristine my books looked and then I realized that some of my favorite books I have found in used bookstores are ones which are written all over and have a well-worn feel to them. I now annotate all my books with pencil and also write my name in them. I love seeing a history of who's owned a given book when I open the front cover and see a name and phone number.

I once read that the only way you can actually damage a book, is by not reading it.

Fire is pretty effective too, in my experience.

Here I thought this was about shredding your books and going completely digital to save space.

I do like when books are wrapped, but to the idea of separating them into parts, I would say probably not worth it. Most books I find myself reading lately are pretty dense, and so my focus is on fitting material in my mind and imagination, i.e. into Gardens of the Moon right now, and I am switching between audiobook, small paperback and companion Claude code wrote for me to help me keep track and visualize what's happening. But hey, if it helps you focus on reading, and you own the book, why not? I do think it is better to just go to your library and work through what they have to offer, without buying the books, so that, hopefully leaves slicing off the table.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect

I think it's fun. You'll also get the IKEA effect helping you to appreciate the book more

I just did a little sick

This seems like a lot of work for not a huge payoff. I get that the feel and experience of a physical book has a certain nostalgia, but for me, I'd just leave the big monster on the shelf and grab an epub from Anna's Archive. You have already ensured the author and publisher get paid, you might as well read on an e-reader, which is in my opinion superior in nearly every way to a physical book.

Ebooks sync across devices, allow for a customized presentation, quick dictionary lookups, bookmarks, etc. The only slight edge I'll give to a physical book is the ability to easily make marginal notes in pencil -- I realize that ebooks have this feature too, it's just not as immediate or as frictionless.

The problem with ebooks is that you cannot be 100% certain that you're reading the original text. That can only be preserved in physical copies. That's why the destructive book scanning for AI is such a tragedy. There's already plenty of examples of original texts being surreptitiously revised, and it happens with videos too.

The problem with ebooks is that you cannot be 100% certain that you're reading the original text.

That's equally true of print books. Misprints happen.

Not the same thing. The kindle ebook you "purchased" could have different text each time you open it up. A movie you stream could be different every time.

30m agoHN ↗

Reading your comment I wonder if the parent comment is different each time, because "does the ebook text change reading-to-reading" is not the question being discussed.

That's not a problem with Ebooks writ large -- a zip file of a bunch of HTML documents aren't likely to randomly change on you. It's a problem of some evil vendor's "ebook ecosystem", where one day your copy of 1984 could vanish from your library. Most of the ebooks I've been reading lately are all public domain classics from Standard Ebooks.

22m agoHN ↗

I was shocked to discover that "How To Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie was heavily rewritten by his wife after his death. I had two copies of the book, and sure enough, one was the old version and the other the new. The new one did not withstand scrutiny.

Nah there's a lot of reasons to prefer physical

* You own it forever

* Nothing to charge

* Don't have yet another screen to stare at

* Its the definitive way to collect books (similar in the sense of vinyl for music)

* Going to used bookstores is awesome

* Seeing your whole collection physically is awesome and can be a conversation starter

* Graphic novels/comics are still better physical

"Seeing your whole collection physically is awesome"

Not after what the submitter did.

I had to stop reading one of my favorite authors when I was doing infant duty with my oldest. The books kept getting thicker, and I could no longer one hand them comfortably reading either end of the novel due to the book's balance. I found a kindle mostly solved my problems, and I could keep reading again one handed.

That said, it never occurred to me to just cut up my book, so I could continue to read it comfortably. I think I might have chosen to do so though, since I find the tactile nature of reading a physical book to be more memorable than digital. Where the words sit on the page, and the act of turning the page, the smell, all does something to my neurons. For my junk novels, I don't really care, but for the authors I cherish, the closer to the printed word I can get the better the experience I have, and the more memorable the writing in general.

This post isn't aimed at people that read a physical book for "nostalgia". They read a lot of books and have already decided that they prefer physical books to an ereader.

That makes no sense to me though. I always prefer physical books to any ereader, but I still stopped accumulating (new) books in my flat - they just accumulate space. I'll always love hardcopy books, but not needing them as a physical hardcopy is just better for me.

I just get rid of most books after reading, knowing that I won’t reread the great majority of them or need them as a reference. For the few that I might unexpectedly end up wanting to reread, it’s okay if I’ll have to reprocure them. That case hasn’t occurred so far.

You seem to be optimizing for storage space, while others are optimizing for their preferred reading experience.

they just accumulate space..

Can't you dontate them to a library. Or take it from one in the first place..

10m agoHN ↗

I had the same problem which inevitable made me buy a bigger apartment. It's hand down the best investment I have ever done since tangible book assets give you so many different an non curated insights which you can only get from reading. You should not see books as something that take up space but rather something that free up space

which is in my opinion superior in nearly every way to a physical book.

A physical book, you encounter in physical space. Thus has a lot more chance to get read. The ebook, one has to take a device and press some button, before the book has even a chance of getting seen...

My ebooks typically get downloaded once, and sits forever unread in some device..

A physical book, I take from a lib and gets read automatically, unless it finds its way to the underside of some furniture...

That IMHO nullifies any convience that e-books have..

We are talking about our opinions here, so there are no wrong answers. It's an interesting observation, the physical presence of a book is something I hadn't considered. Having said that, I'd wager lots of us avid readers have a daily habit, and we'd likely be working through our backlog during certain hours, even absent a convenient a physical reminder to do so.

Quick, someone make a startup to print chopped-up-books on demand.

I have very fond memories of reading hitchhikers guide to the galaxy with a friend in highschool. The book was old and had already started falling apart, and so we just broke it up into chapters and would pass it to the next person one chapter at a time.

I am so confused

I wish more books would come in the same format as the Macmillan Collector's Library series of books. They're tiny hardback books with thin pages. I just checked my copy of Moby Dick, it's about 770 pages, but the book has a very pocket-able size of just 15.6×10×3.5 cm (6.2×4×1.4").

I wonder why the publishers insist on selling thick books like that. The books I read tend to come in multiple volumes, and it's not like I would finish it all at once so I just need to carry at most one or two volumes.

38m agoHN ↗

When I was a broke college student I would buy thicker books to get best value.

Nice comment section. Is it necessary to bring up ebooks whenever print books are mentioned? I haven't heard a worthwhile opinion on the matter in at least 15 years. Anyways, cool post.

No, it's necessary only when the alternative is to mutilate the print edition...

If the gutter is wide enough, you can have them rebound with spiral binding. This is incredible useful for holding or putting a book flat. I did this to all my textbooks in college.

This is probably just a personal quirk, but I despise spiral bindings. I hate the feel of them. They never hold together. They catch on everything and come apart. Pages get torn far more easily. They make the books - if you can even call spiral-bound stacks if paper that - more difficult to organize. They suck.

I hate my non-spiral bound music books - they never sit well on a music stand. However for all other books I agree, spiral sucks.

I don't understand why Cracking The Coding Interview never published a two volume spiral bound book. It's the perfect candidate: it's huge, you're referencing two different sections regularly, and you stay on one page for quite a while. I never ended up doing it to my copy though.

Giving yourself the old playstation experience. Please insert Disc 2.

Was this blog post written by Anthropic?

Did you read it?

One of the more unintentional "reject modernity, embrace tradition" posts on this site. In a world where this catches on someone will come up with the bright idea of serialized novels again. It's like a payment plan for a book! More watercooler moments waiting for the next volume! Authors incorporating fan feedback between volumes! Imagine all the Dickensian possibilities.

someone will come up with the bright idea of serialized novels again

You mean, like on Reddit? ;)

Plenty of webfiction out there which is exactly this. It does tend to fall into the trap of going on forever though.

There is a lot of web fiction out there that would be better if the authors had written "the end" a few years ago.

That advice makes no sense.

In fact - many old huge books are epic. I remember in the early 1990s we had a huge book about history. It detailed each year with the most important events. I loved reading in it. Even today I like it.

Unfortunately I am also now part of the digital-only guys, so I have not bought a hardcopy paper books in quite a while (excluding one exception for Raymond Feist, but by and large I only read .pdf files nowadays). So I store things in .pdf files mostly. I also hate .epub files and refuse to use them.

I still have many old books here, but new books rarely come up and I only keep books I find interesting or important or I may re-read. For instance I have one small hardcopy of 1984; I think it is an important book. And a few more like that. But I barely have any new paper books.

I don't presently have any really huge book. Not sure what I will do should I inherit huge books. On the one hand, having them is kind of cool, but I don't want to keep them in a library or shelf either, so ... I will probably not use it. But I would not chop up any book, not even on a first april. It just seems totally pointless and also defeats the point of having huge books. Huge books are kind of cool. Not practical but cool.

Or - don't choose 850 page books for a book club?

You may love it, but your friend may hate it.

Keep it for yourself.

I split a Spanish-English dictionary in half so I could carry around just the English to Spanish part to look up the right words while living in a Spanish-speaking country. In the other direction, I got pretty good at guesstimating the meaning of unfamiliar words based on context and cognate roots, or at least I could get the vibes of what the person was telling me.

I feel like we’ve been hit by one of Michael O. Church’s troll agents.

1. Obsession with massive books.

2. High-value target (this community.)

3. Obviously bad idea that some people will treat as an earnest suggestion.

4. Oblique commentary on bad behavior by AI companies (destructive scanning of rare books.)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/26/mesmerising...

Are AI companies trying to poison the search index?

Like Boris Johnson did when he had fun times with a model on the campaign bus, then did a bizarre interview when he claimed he made model buses!

Damn, did news articles ~7 years ago really just consist of a series of embedded tweets?

It feels familiar but also kind of jarring.

4m agoHN ↗

Yes, and I recall at the time being exasperated by it -- "Twitter is NOT NEWS it is children yelling across the playground at each other!"

Or Disney releasing a movie called "Frozen" so that web searches for "Disney Frozen" stopped returning macabre rumors about Walt Disney's possible posthumous cryogenic preservation.

Ah, so that’s why they released one of their most successful blockbusters, it was all an elaborate plot to bury the well known and long debunked story of the frozen Walt Disney.

41m agoHN ↗

Well it wouldn't have been as effective as a box office bomb.

37m agoHN ↗

Wait until you learn about the namesake for "Dubai chocolate" [NSFW]

35m agoHN ↗

There are many many much more crazier ideas floating around. This one, even if made up, is funny and not harmful to anything. I'll allow it.

21m agoHN ↗

The claim is that it's why the movie has that name, not why they made the movie.

40m agoHN ↗

I remember telling people about it back then and it sounded crazy even to me. Yet..

I love my kindle for this exact reason. I never shy away from a book that's "too big" anymore because I have no idea how big it is!

If you read in bed, it’s going to tire your arms out, trying to hold this giant tome over your head.

Eh? What sort of a pretend-reader does that? You must read nothing more than a page at a time.

I have the Diary of Pepys beside the bed and it’s the excerpts, at only about 1000 pages. Enjoying it tremendously.