Life is Hard(back), then you Read... 

As you may have picked up previously, I’m not a huge fan of hardback books. For one thing they tend to be rather expensive – around double the cost of a paperback or more – unless you pick them up in sales or in shops dedicated to selling on hardbacks at discount prices (like my favourite Indie bookshop in ‘town’). For another thing they tend to be both huge and heavy in comparison to paperbacks so are more of a hassle getting home, lugging around or simply holding in your hand. They also take up significantly more space on shelves (or on the floor) and so on. Of course, there are a few advantages too – otherwise they wouldn’t exist – including the fact that they’re often published a year or so before the paperback (IF they come out in paperback at all) and are significantly more robust, thereby ‘keeping’ in a decent condition for much longer that their paperback version which is always in danger of falling apart after a few years. So, it won’t come as too much of a surprise to know that I don’t own many hardbacks – but I do have some... 

Having a significant number of unread books in my house (I have no idea HOW many exactly but it wouldn’t surprise me too much if it exceeded 1000) it's always a problem of choosing what to read next. I don’t really want to read books at random or be a *complete* slave to my butterfly mind so I need some sort of rational to what I’m going to read next. This is why I’ve been inventing schemes and themes to focus on particular books or areas of interest, in part to stop me picking something up just because it's a recent arrival or the topic is front and centre in my head. So, to cut a long, rambling and probably boring story short, I’ve added yet another criteria to my ‘what shall I read next’ filter: Hardbacks. 

Over the last few weeks I’ve been going through the stacks of books around my house picking out some of the chunkier hardbacks I own and giving them their own stack(s) - presently 3 – for a grand total of around 50 books. Some of these date back to the 1970’s - although I haven’t had them THAT long – whilst others herald from 2022 or 2023. They’re in a wide variety of topics – The War of 1812, the technology of vaccine production, the Vietnam War, Evolutionary genetics etc – and a variety of thicknesses up to pretty substantial chunksters (in excess of 700 pages). My intention is to filter these into my ‘read next’ stack during the next few years so I can create a bit more room for more, and smaller, paperbacks. The first few have already started to edge into my 'pre-read next' stack, but they’ll take a while to work through into my actual review pile. I imagine the first hardbacks should be reviewed here from the end of the year or possibly early next. It’ll be good to actually get to *read* them, rather than using them as very solid foundations to paperback stacks. I may have to start strengthening my wrists though...!