Friday 16 January 2009

Book dimensions

Reaching the end of a good book is always a slightly bittersweet experience. You have the joy and the contentment that you've reached the end, that the story is wrapped up and all the loose ends that are going to be tidied up have been tidied. But then you have the knowledge that there's no more to enjoy. The end of a good book always sneaks up on me. All of a sudden, you turn the last page and it's there. It's always a shock.
But the end of a mediocre book is exactly where you expect it. And the end of a bad book is, in my experience, rarely ever reached. In an ideal world, I think that places like Amazon shouldn't list the number of pages contained in books; rather they should have the length of time it takes to read it. Time is definitely the appropriate dimension to be measuring books in, not the physical size.

If you're wondering what book prompted this thought, it was The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. You can get it for £5 on Amazon, and trust me, you won't be disappointed.

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