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.