The Intimate Paperback
Today is a red-letter day for me … and Miranda Corbie! 😉
Miranda’s out in paperback for the first time, in a beautiful trade edition of CITY OF DRAGONS. This isn’t actually her debut in paperback—that came with the mass market paperback of FIRST THRILLS—but it is her first solo gig in softcover.
I love paperbacks. They’re informal, more intimate that a hardcover … though of course I love hardbacks, too. They’re parental and solid, reassuring and stable. They’re the books you can depend on and reach for, time and again.
But paperbacks … well, paperbacks are kind of sexy.
They are, after all, the books you take to bed, covers bent backwards, with dog-eared pages and the spine weathered and lined. They accompany you to the beach, on planes, on vacations to sunnier climes, sporting water rings from the Mojito you just finished.
Paperbacks are a summer fling, a quick tryst in the ski lodge, a book to be devoured in a burst of passion.
Alas, comes the time for fall or spring cleaning, and many a paperback—torn, tattered, scarred and bent out of shape, old beyond its years—is sent off packing to Goodwill or a garage sale, banished from the vacation places it used to call home.
Of course, some readers actually save their paperbacks (bless you!), collect them, and keep them looking beautiful. I’ve always adored paperback cover art from the past—from lurid, sensationalistic covers to Deco beauties to the famous Dell “Map Backs”—and add to my collection when money and opportunity permits.
I certainly hope the CITY OF DRAGONS trade paperback brings Miranda new admirers … whether they read it on a beach in a last hurrah for summer or take it on a plane trip or peruse it at home in a comfortable chair. The cover stock is nubby and textured, colors vibrant and warm, size pleasantly holdable … altogether, it looks like much more than a fling. 😉
September 5, 2011 @ 8:16 am
I love the “nubby and textured” and the “warm and vibrant” colors! Great sensual details–hey you must be a writer! But seriously, I do hope in this ebook world (which I do love) that we continue to hold onto books in our hands, feeling them and smelling them and loving it all. I remember one slightly odd day in one of my advanced Latin classes when I passed out copies of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a lovely paperback translation that just had a great feel and look to it. I was sliding my hands over the silky cover and admiring the way the words were laid out on each page with wide margins and a gorgeous font. At first my high school students looked at me like this time I truly had lost my mind, but pretty soon they were all rubbing the cover and sniffing the new book smell and when I handed out ziploc bags so they could drag these books back and forth without destroying them, they didn’t even call 911 to be rescued from the crazy lady! Congrats on the new version of Miranda in the world!
September 5, 2011 @ 10:35 am
Good for you, Judith!! (Real) book appreciation definitely needs to be passed down to the next generation!!
Thanks for stopping by, and for the congratulations!! 🙂
September 1, 2011 @ 1:04 pm
You sure make kpaperbacks sound sexy, Killi. I like that, since all of my seven mysteries are in paperback, with only a few also in hardback..
September 1, 2011 @ 1:09 pm
Thanks, Chester!! 🙂 I think paperbacks are very sexy … and congratulations on having seven of them! 🙂