I do wish that publishers would create books that I can carry. Look at the size of this Jodi Picoult book - a hardback that didn't cost much, yet it is enormous. Compare its size to those paperbacks of the fifties and sixties, and of earlier, when books were expensive. Then you could fit a book into a handbag, or even a pocket, to read it as and where and when was convenient. Now you need a desk to hold these big books as you read them because they are so heavy.One of my favourite old books is Arthur Ransome's Old Peter's Russian Tales, which is a small now battered red book of six and a half inches by four and a quarter inches by less than an inch. The edition I have was printed in 1942 and became my mother's in 1943. It is small enough to hide in a deep pocket, or a small handbook, light and easy for travelling. Perhaps I'll take it on holiday in October.
Do we have to be so ostentatious that we show what we're reading instead of just enjoying that private moment in another world?
