Publishing Garbage

[bioentropy]

Am I the only one who has noticed that _EVERY_ edition of Joseph Campbell's work is perfect bound and made with crappy paper? I like much of his material but from what I can tell all of his published work will be gone in 50 years. I don't think his ideas are ready to be thrown away.

Comments

[suddenlynaked]

So I don't know anything about book binding, but it seems like "perfect" is the enemy of the good here...

And yeah - books should be sewn together and made of acid / lignin fee hemp paper.

[bioentropy]

Perfect bound is edge glued with no thread in the spine at all. The resin they use for the glue continues to cure forever so it gets quite brittle after about 25 years or so. It means that most of the mass market paper back, trade paperback and many of the trade cloth (hardcover) will be falling apart before they can be passed on.