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A biographer I follow on a social media platform once wrote "we're a hardcover household". Where does the tradition of preferences between these two options come from?

Mo_delfren
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    Cost versus durability I'd say is a big factor. Everyone will have a preference one way or another. I don't think this can answered objectively. – Skooba Apr 18 '20 at 11:20
  • The Wikipedia article states that hardcovers come out first, and paperbacks come out for only the books that are popular. I wanted to know if this led to wealthier people establishing some reasoning behind a preference for hardcovers. It could be a logical reason beyond the obvious durability. – Mo_delfren Apr 18 '20 at 13:35
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    Please add this information to your question, as it adds valuable context. – Jos Apr 18 '20 at 15:41
  • Because serious and good books are hard bound. – Lambie Mar 03 '24 at 21:32
  • @Lambie If that were true, why are books published in France never hardcover books? (With rare exceptions such as the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade.) – Tsundoku Mar 03 '24 at 22:41
  • @Tsundoku Yep, I lived in France for 16 years. La Pléiade books are leather bound, not hardcover like in the States and the UK. A different tradition. The quote refers to the English-speaking world. – Lambie Mar 04 '24 at 13:33
  • @Lambie "The quote refers to the English-speaking world." That is a claim for which I see no hard evidence. – Tsundoku Mar 04 '24 at 14:07
  • @Tsundoku I highly doubt it is a translation. It's pretty much prima facie evidence. Even if literary or imaginative. – Lambie Mar 04 '24 at 14:13
  • I have always preferred paperback to hardcover, not because of cost, but mainly because they are more lightweight and portable. I find them easier and more convenient to read. Regarding quality/durability: there seems to have been a huge dive in quality of paperbacks in the US in recent years. I have paperbacks I bought 20 years ago in the UK, which are in better condition than the cheap garbage being sold these days in US bookstores. – Time4Tea Mar 06 '24 at 18:43
  • @Lambie just to point out: many scientific text books are published softcover. It would be hard to argue that those aren't serious/good? – Time4Tea Mar 06 '24 at 18:44
  • @Time4Tea This is the opinion of some guy and I am making an educated guess as a NES. There is no correct answer here. Only opinions. If you disagree with him, that's fine. It's still an opinion. This question is not even about literature. – Lambie Mar 06 '24 at 19:01

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There are more ways to bind a book than is suggested by the binary opposition of hardcover versus paperback.

Paperbacks are usually made by applying glue to the "spine" of a set of sheets and then glueing the cover to the spine. (See Bind Your Own Paperback Books With Ease on the Instructable website for a tutorial explaining how to glue a book at home.) Sometimes the sheets aren't fully cut but combined into sections, and the glue is then applied to the spine of these sections. As the book ages, the glue can become brittle, which can cause the spine to break when you open the book. Another downside is that bad glueing or low-quality glue can cause pages to become unstuck.

Hardcover books used to be sewn more often, which is a more time-consuming and therefore more expensive process than glueing. (Advantage Book Binding describes three methods: Smyth sewn hard cover books, adhesive bound hard cover books and wire-bound hardback books.) In addition, the rigid protective covers provide more protection than the flexible paper covers, and they are more expensive.

The Wikipedia article on hardcover points out that

If brisk sales are anticipated, a hardcover edition of a book is typically released first, followed by a "trade" paperback edition (same format as hardcover) the next year. Some publishers publish paperback originals if slow hardback sales are anticipated.

However, hardcover books are not always sewn; I have seen cheap hardcover books that were actually glued, with a hardcover glued to the first and last pages of the book. And paperbacks can be bound in a way that they lay flat when you open them. Two publishers in IT who use such bindings are O'Reilly (RepKover binding) and No Starch Press.

The massmarket paperback is a more recent phenomenon than hardcover books. The Wikipedia article on paperback mentions paperbacks being available in the 19th century, but Oliver Corlett writes that they already existed as early as the 17th century. However, 19th-century paperbacks were typically "dime novels" or "pulp fiction". Apparently, that was also what motivated Allen Lane to publish serious works of literature as paperbacks. According to the article How the Paperback Novel Changed Popular Literature, Lane was on his way back home after spending a weekend in the country with Agatha Christie:

While he was in Exeter station waiting for his train back to London, he browsed shops looking for something good to read. He struck out. All he could find were trendy magazines and junky pulp fiction. And then he had a “Eureka!” moment: What if quality books were available at places like train stations and sold for reasonable prices—the price of a pack of cigarettes, say?

This is what led to the founding of Penguin Books in 1935.

In conclusion, the impression of superiority of hardcover books over paperbacks can come from two sources: the superior material quality and the lingering stigma of pulp fiction.

Tsundoku
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