Hill I Will Die On Hardback Books

The hill I will die on: Heavy, awkward and incredibly expensive – we don’t need hardback books | Larry Ryan

It’s an annoying choice: either lug around a heavy tome or try to remember when the paperback version is coming out, says freelance writer Larry Ryan

✍ Larry Ryan

🕒 06 May 2026 14:00

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Recently, readers have been all a-flutter over the publication of Patrick Radden Keefe’s richly reported new book, London Falling. Reviews of the celebrated writer’s exploration of the death of an English teenager embroiled in the murky worlds of crime and the ultra-rich have been rapturous. The podcast interviews are plentiful and images of the fresh hardback copy are popping up all over my Instagram. And about all of this I think: “Looks great, but I’ll wait for the paperback.”

I’m a fairly typical reader and get through a decent number of books every year. I mainly read fiction and try to keep up with what’s going on in contemporary literature. But time and money aren’t plentiful; I’m a slow reader and a freelance journalist.

Allied to this is another major factor: I hate hardback books and think we should ditch them altogether.

The simple fact is that hardbacks are too expensive, and when you know that a cheaper version of the book will arrive in a vaguely defined nine- to 13-month period, it’s easy to just postpone purchasing it. Yet this seems like an unnecessary pause for everyone involved. Given how difficult it is for any piece of culture, let alone books, to get more than fleeting attention, it seems baffling that publishers first offer up the least accessible version. Especially in an era when the cost of producing new books increases and sales struggle. Plus, by the time the lesser-heralded paperback edition arrives, there is a good chance I’ll have just forgotten about it.

My bigger problem, though, is that hardbacks are too cumbersome. They’re hard to travel with, be it on a commute, on holiday or anywhere else; they’re bulky in a bag and they certainly won’t slip easily into a jacket pocket. They’re also awkward to read, especially anything more than 300 or so pages. Taking on a hefty hardback while standing on the tube holding on to a railing with one hand is an obvious irritant. Some years back I impulse-bought the newly released hardback edition of Thomas Pynchon’s novel Against the Day: that sucker is 1,085 pages long – it felt as if I was lugging a small child around for weeks.

I’m shallow, so I won’t pretend I don’t care how books actually look: the consensus is that hardbacks are fancier, but I disagree. Generally hardbacks just look overgrown, and they sit uncomfortably on bookshelves. If a dust jacket gets loose it becomes another impediment.

I spoke to (harangued) some people working in publishing who offered reasons why the industry persists with hardbacks. There is still prestige attached, and writers, booksellers and readers like them. More practically, books take a long time to permeate through the culture, so publishers figure they can get a taste of hardback sales and then hoover up whatever else is possible later. Given that most new books don’t make it past four-figure sales, they hope they can make almost as much through the small but committed hardback buyers as will follow in the paperback round.

To which I can only say: fair enough. Perhaps this is an opinion that cannot withstand two follow-up questions, to use the inverse of an old Onion headline, but it’s my hill and I am ready to die.