Inside Books: In praise of paperbacks

Lately, I have been giving rather a lot of thought to the humble paperback. I say humble, for this is a format with no pretensions of grandeur, no fancy binding, no place-keeping ribbon, no dust-protecting jacket that can be slipped on and off as you will. I have always been told that modesty is a good thing, yet I worry that it is the paperback’s quiet humility that has so endangered it.