Book Durability Quotes

As part of my research for An Anthology of Authors' Atrocity Stories About Publishers, I conducted a study (employing my usual controls) that showed the average shelf life of a trade book to be somewhere between milk and yoghurt.

At present, however, I don't think the Net is a very good medium for books, books should really be inexpensive lightweight paperbacks you can bang around.

A classic is a book that remains in print

A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.

The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn't have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable.

The shelf life of the modern hardback writer is somewhere between the milk and the yogurt.

I like small books. I like durable books. I like plain books. I like small type and thin pages.

In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from the binding.

The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book - it makes a very poor doorstop.

Look at a book. A book is the right size to be a book. They're solar-powered. If you drop them, they keep on being a book. You can find your place in microseconds. Books are really good at being books, and no matter what happens, books will survive.

The shelf life of the average trade book is somewhere between milk and yogurt.

Only those books come down which deserve to last . All the gilt edges, vellum and morocco, all the presentation copies to all the libraries will not preserve a book in circulation beyond its intrinsic date.