Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 10:17:01 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu>
To: <wsfalist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] The binding will not hold, pages fall apart
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Interesting piece here: http://slate.msn.com/id/2079769/ about UK books =
and why they seem to be so poorly produced.  I have fairly UK hardcovers =
that have rarely seen light and the edges are turning brown.

"The books from England - and only the books from
England - are falling to pieces. The unread American books in our
collection, along with those from Germany and France and Italy and
Mexico, still look brand-new. But even a 4-year-old English hardback has
warped covers, a binding that snaps like a saltine when you open it, and
pages so brittle and brown that the act of pulling it from the shelf =
leaves a
little confetti pile of paper chips on the floor. It's not just that these =
English
books are junky (aesthetically); it's that they're often unreadable
(logistically). They're dying."

In my more cynical moments I suspect that with all ofthe acid-free paper =
that is used in the US that we're shipping all the acid to the UK.