Flipping for Flipbacks

Have you heard about or seen the new little flipback books? If you're in the U.S., chances are your answer is no. I read about these iphone-sized flipbacks on Jeremy Dibbell's blog late last month and went directly to Amazon UK to order one for myself. Here is Jeremy's description of the book's format: "The construction of the flipbacks (sewn binding, with the front board and spine unattached to the backstrip) permits them to open fully (handy, I've found, for reading while eating), and the light weight makes it very easy to hold the book with with one hand. They're printed on very thin Indoprint 'Bible paper' (which certainly helps keep the weight down), and typeset in what seems to be a Karmina Sans font. That took a bit of getting used to, but after about twenty pages or so I barely noticed. Flipping the pages upward instead of sideways also was a little disorienting at first, but again I didn't even notice after a few minutes."

Hodder & Stoughton has twelve to choose from (a nice little collection...); I went for the Jaspar Fforde title, Shades of Grey. I'm looking forward to reading this mini-book, if only because while reading in bed, my hands tend to fall asleep before I do!

You can read more about flipbacks in the Guardian or the LibraryThing newsletter, where Jeremy has a Q&A with flipback publisher Kate Parkin.