| I thought book quality started going downhill circa 1990. I am a fan of the old mass market paperbacks. These had a reputation of being low quality books back in the day because they are cheap and not super-durable but I think they are high quality from a Deming point of view because they are made by a process that is highly repeatable. Circa 2000 I thought my 1970s paperbacks were in great shape, but 2010 they were seriously yellowing. I just looked at my bookshelf and found a '59 James Blish anthology that I bought for 50 cents maybe ten years ago, it is in "poor" condition and will probably crack if I read it without taking great care. Next to that I found a copy of Galbraith's The Affluent Society from 1958 which is perfectly usable except I'd be worried about the cover coming off. A Frank Herbert book from '68 is stained but in great shape other than the cover also being at risk. A '74 Herbert book is a touch discolored but has no problems at all. (My collection includes not just science fiction of that era but also both self-help and serious books on psychology as well as books about science, politics, social sciences, etc. Government reports about inflation or race relations would be published as mass market paperbacks. You could get Plato and Sartre and Freud and the rest of the Western literary heavyweights) The construction, materials, process, and such were repeatable enough that they even fail consistently. Not permanent, but 50 years is not bad. The right size to go in a purse or side pocket of a backpack (e.g. part of the loadout of a bibliomaniac who has 12 books in his backpack) I've got to find a good way to reinforce the cover (adhesive tape?) Those are no longer produced, today it is trade paperbacks. There is wide variation in the dimension, construction, materials and processes for these. You sometimes find a trade paperback that is beautiful, strongly constructed and printed on acid free paper. Others you pay $50 for and the binding breaks the first time you lay the book open on the table. |
Don't - it yellows too.