Am I the only person who doesn't understand hardbacked books, and by that I mean the fact that they are sold exclusively at the beginning of a book's life.

I mean, imagine if for the first year of a new album's release you could only get it on 12" vinyl and that in a case that was 2 inches thick, weighed a tonne and had an RRP of £20? And then a year later you'd get the first CD version at the normal sort of price?

The point here is that there's nothing wrong with hardbacked books if you like that sort of thing - libraries love 'em obviously. But they're utterly impractical these days as we all live in increasingly small dwellings, with more and more 'stuff' and a vast % of us read on the move. Even if I don't buy the latest book in a series when it comes out (and save myself the shelf space), renting or borrowing it still means I have to lug the bloody thing around.

Personally I wouldn't have a problem if they produced the paperback on first release but with an inflated RRP similar to the hardback, presuming it really is all about the publishing houses making money. I can accept that on initial release things tend to cost more: the same thing happens with CDs and DVDs after all.

The current situation just peeves me too much.

/rant