The Birth of Anchor Books

https://theamericanscholar.org/the-birth-of-the-egghead-paperback/

by samclemens • 4 years ago

27 15 4 years ago

I believed and still do that the democratic ideal is a permanent and inconclusive Socratic seminar in which we all learn from one another. The publisher’s job is to supply the necessary readings.

preach it.

rob74• 4 years ago

Sorry, but I somehow fail to see what made this idea particularly original in the 1950s. I am aware of at least one publisher that started printing affordable paperbacks of classic books already in 1867 - Reclams Universal-Bibliothek (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reclam, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taschenbuch#/media/Datei:Recla...)

drewcoo• 4 years ago

Publishing is like software but they reinven^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hinnovate at a slower pace.

cafard3• 4 years ago

It is my impression that at one time European, or at least French, publishers were accustomed to print with soft covers, the expectation being that the purchaser would see to the binding.

civilized2• 4 years ago

This looks interesting but the font is very unpleasant on mobile.

parksy• 4 years ago

Usually I'm not bothered by how a font looks but this one was unpleasant to me as well and I'm not one to usually notice. It seems they're using a font face designed for titles in the body text.

"“The Bodoni typestyle is not an all-purpose workhorse. It is, rather a high-strung thoroughbred,” says Allan Haley, Monotype’s director of words and letters. He is absolutely correct! Most currently available Bodoni designs are intended for, and best used for display sizes. Their extreme thin strokes won’t reproduce well at smaller sizes, which can degrade their appearance and lessen readability. Using a Bodoni outside of that version’s “sweet spot” size range can have unintended results: If you’re using one that is intended for display, but setting it at small point sizes, the thins might not hold up, spacing will most likely appear too tight, and overall readability will begin to be compromised. " - https://creativepro.com/typetalk-good-looking-bodoni-at-any-...

cafard3• 4 years ago

A friend once heard Herman Zapf say that he had not intended Melior--or perhaps Optima--as a text font but a display font. Some of the audience, which consisted largely of people working in book design and production, was shocked.

Edit: Actually, he probably said Palatino.

dang• 4 years ago

"Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Stratoscope• 4 years ago

I agree with that general principle, of course. But I do enjoy tangential discussions when I can learn from them.

In this case, parksy posted an interesting commentary on Bodoni. For a typeface enthusiast like me, this may be more interesting than the original topic!

nashadelic• 4 years ago

On iOS I just use reader view by either tapping the left side of the address bar and choosing it or tapping and holding on it.

civilized2• 4 years ago

I can sometimes get something similar on Android but didn't see it pop up in this case.

billfruit• 4 years ago

Weren't there no Penguin paperbacks in USoA? They started doing essentially the same thing in 1935.

Arkadin• 4 years ago

Penguin was in the UK and they didn’t publish for the US market and weren’t distributed in bookstores until much later.

The article talks about the other publishers in the US doing the same thing at the time. Anchor wasn’t the first to publish ‘quality’ paperbacks, they just had the largest impact on the US publishing industry due to combination of distribution in bookstores, cover design, and catalog curation.

jmeister• 4 years ago

I recently bought a cheap, delightfully printed, otherwise hard-to-find Kaufmann translation of Goethe’s Faust.

Probably my best value-for-money purchase ever.

https://www.amazon.com/Goethes-Faust-Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe/...

cafard3• 4 years ago

One of the advantages of "quality paperbacks" is that they are handy. American publishers seem to produce their hardbacks for a library trade in which a volume will be handled roughly every week.

The Birth of Anchor Books

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