Dissappointed In Book Quality Lately? Options

Is anyone here besides me, dissappointed in the quality of books being put out today. I'm not referring to their content (although you seem to be getting less and less of that also), but more in terms of construction. I know most occult books don't sell in volume to warrant the nice, hardbound tome of a book we all (most?) yearn after as a way of connecting with the scribes of antiquity, but it seems even the nicer-looking "perfect bound" books fall apart rather quickly. I still have books from the seventies I've had since they were new that are still in fairly good shape. I even have some of my mother's books from the 40's that are not damaged. yet, I find that new books I buy have only about a 50% chance of surviving the first reading.

Anyone else come across this problem?

I know, its the new age crap they sell.

So true

One thing to also consider is how we treat our books. How many of us “crack” the spine of books by flipping the left side behind the right as we read? I do. True, this is much more comfortable and permits us to see the text near the spine better, but it destroys the book.

Sadly, I think the days of beautifully leather bound tomes are behind us – we have entered the age of the virtual and our books are becoming just that (ebooks and pdfs). The quality of books will continue to deteriorate until they are eventually replaced by the virtual market. In the end, the only thing cheaper to produce than shitty binding is no binding at all.

For us bibliophiles this is a depressing prospect. However, this does not mean that we cannot rebind our books, in particular those we find personally meaningful. Take those volumes you really cherish to an antique book dealer, they can turn a mass market paperback into the masterpiece of your collection. Alternatively, you can rebind them yourselves. Or, if you are willing to shell out the extra $$ you can always count on the quality of some of the smaller more specialized publishers. Check out ( for one example) Ouroboros Press.