We all know a good whinge is balm for the soul, so ArtsHub reached out to the local community to see what our collective annoyances are when it comes to books. These are minor peeves yet irritating all the same – paper-cuts may be shallow, but they are nonetheless still painful! These complaints have been restricted to the initial reactions – before you even get into the work itself. Perhaps publishers can take heed of some of these comments when they consider how to shape and package their wares.
Read: 20 famous closing lines in books
- Small fonts and narrow leading and margins. OK, yes the cost of paper is increasing and so it makes economic sense to squeeze in as many words as possible per page, but making the reader squint does not make for a pleasant reading experience.
- Overly busy covers that prioritise the artwork over the text so you have to look closely to figure out the actual title/author name among the hyperactive swirls of colour and patterns.
- New-release sizes that are too big and heavy to carry around easily.
- Print that goes too far into the book’s gutter, making it difficult to read without breaking the spine.
- A series in which some books are taller in size than the others, so they do not sit uniformly on your bookshelf.
- Alternatively, buying one or two books in a series from an author, only for the publisher to then release a box set of all of them.
- Books that feature the author’s name in far bigger font than the actual title.
- Price stickers on the front cover; when you peel them the artwork comes off.
- Back cover blurbs that tell us nothing about the book’s content, but are full of hyperventilating praise-quotes from fellow authors.
- Finally, as ArtsHub‘s Reviews and Literary Editor, I receive a lot of books and my particular peeve is a single book being sent in a large box – with or without unnecessary packaging peanuts. Why can’t a suitable padded envelope be used instead or why not send multiple books in the box to maximise the space?
