Compare and contrast

     By coincidence, our Book Group titles for this month and next are both published in the Penguin Modern Classics series. What leads me to put them side by side today is not their content but their looks. Call me superficial, but I was struck by the difference in physical quality between the two books. 
    J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country has small print, but why, as it's such a short book? The text could have been set over a few more pages and it would have been much clearer. Then its cover: an attractive image, but not matched by the quality of the paper, and the same charge of inferiority can be laid on the interior pages.
On the other hand, Fifth Business by Robertson Davies feels lovely! I don't like the cover picture (and I can't see its relevance to the story) but the paper both inside and out is a pleasure to handle, and the weight and 'heft' of the book made me want to keep on picking it up (I'm doing so now, playing with it as it's so tactile). Further, you can read it easily without risking spine-cracking.
     We've touched on some of this before with the post on a book's condition (some great comments there!), but I thought it worth highlighting here, as surely in these straitened times everything which helps or hinders a book's sales should be taken account of.
     I must make some mention of content, and though we'll be talking about the Carr on Saturday, we've got a month and more until we do the Davies. All I'll say for now is, if you can possibly get hold of either or preferably both of these books and read them soon, do.

Comments

[Jackie (Farm Lane Books)]

I can't comment on Fifth Business, as my copy isn't the penguin classic one, but I agree with you on A Month in the Country - the type is really small! Although in a strange way I associate small type with intelligence...is it just me, or do you think that books with larger type come across as less worthy?

[Dark Puss]

I cannot comment on A Month in the Country as I borrowed the "Harvester Press" edition which I think is the original. It has a fairly readable typeface (12 or 13 pt). I associate a small typeface with either impoversished times, or books with an enormous numbr of pages. I don't see the connection with intelligence mentioned by "Jackie". Some of the most intellectually challenging books I have ever attempted to read (Gravitation by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler springs to mind here) have a very reasonable size. I've read some intellectually inferior rubbish in 8 point too ...

[Mary McCartney]

I have the Harvester Press edition too and it's very readable. The front is horrible though; the title blares out.

[Barbara MacLeod]

Well, I am glad you mentioned this subject because I noticed the small print size and poor quality of the paper too. My copy is Penguin Modern Classics, 1980. But ... even stranger is something in the first line of page 15. The date is typed as capital i, number, number, number [ I373 not 1373], then the Maltese Cross symbol followed by a full stop. I cannot type the whole thing here as the cross which seems to be Zapf Dingbat shift 2 comes out @ (ampersand). I am in the middle of trying to find out what this means and why would Penguin use letters/numerals and a symbol this way? Speak to you later when we gather for cake and chat!

[Louisa]

I agree with you about"A Month in the Country".I wear reading glasses anyway and I thought I might have to go back to the optometrist and get new glasses.