- As a physical object and a feat of technology, the printed book is hard to improve upon. Apart from minor cosmetic tweaks, the form has barely evolved since the codex first arose as an appealing alternative to scrolls around 2,000 years ago.
So when Julie Strauss-Gabel, the president and publisher of Dutton Books for Young Readers, discovered “dwarsliggers” — tiny, pocket-size, horizontal flipbacks that have become a wildly popular print format in the Netherlands — it felt like a revelation.
Besides the obvious dismissal as "teenage-hipster bullshit" (selling John Green books as design objects in a fucking urban outfitters? seriously?) What is… the point? This article spends 23 paragraphs talking about this new design concept without describing its benefits any more concretely than "it's interesting!" or "it's bold and different!" Which, like, yeah. It's different. But does it actually improve on the existing design of books, or does it just make them a bit "quirkier" and a bit closer to smartphones so that we can stick them in an Anthropologie?
Well a one handed book would have less words. Maybe less words will draw people in at this age of smartphones and social media. Less is more. More is less. Forget two hands, do it with only one!