This Week's Question:
Do you read hardcovers with the dust jacket on or off? Why or why not?
My Answer:
Oooh... It's been a really long time since I read a hardcover.
I avoid them like the plague.
They take up too much space on my shelf, they're heavy and, in my humble opinion, a complete rip-off.
I especially detest it when a series starts off in paperback and then part way through flips to hardcover. I mean, seriously?! What is the point? You suddenly realise that people like it and decide to milk them for as much cash as you can? Not only by making them spend double - or more - on a hardback but my manipulating a bookworm's OCD and forcing them to re-buy the previous books in hardback so their shelf matches? Or forcing them to wait months more for the continuation of the story when it finally releases in paperback?
Not cool publishers. Not cool.
Don't even get me started on publishers charging hardback prices for an ebook...
However, long before Kindle, I did cave to the machine and buy hardcovers on occasion, because I couldn't wait to continue a series.
When I did this, I always took the dust jacket off and stashed it somewhere refusing to put it back on until I had finished reading.
They're fiddly and pointless and just make an already fiddly book even harder to read unless it's stripped off.
What about you? Do you like hardbacks? Do the dust jackets annoy the ever-loving bejeezus out of you?