How book weight and proportions impact reading experience

Let's take a brief excursion into history. Paper was invented in the first century AD in China. After the Battle of Talas in 751 AD between the Chinese and Arabs, the secret of papermaking was transmitted to the Islamic world. In the 13th century, Italians adopted and enhanced the papermaking process. The technology reached them from the Caliphate of Cordoba, which encompassed a significant portion of Spain and Portugal during the Middle Ages.

Since Italians were the first in Europe to adopt the papermaking process, the names of paper sizes originated from Italian.

There are three main sizes:

1 - Folio is approximately 15 inches (38 cm) tall by 10 inches (25 cm) wide. If the size is bigger than 15 inches by 10 inches, it is still considered folio. The largest books are printed in this size.

2 - Quarto is around 12 inches (30 cm) tall by 9 inches (23 cm) wide, similar to the size of a regular magazine.

3 - Octavo measures about 8 to 10 inches (20 to 25 cm) tall by 5 to 6 inches (13 to 15 cm) wide. This is the most common book size, and it is likely that the majority of books in your library are in octavo size. Since octavo is the most common size for a book, let me provide more information about it.

One easy way to gauge the octavo size is to compare it to smartphones, which are commonly around 6 inches in height. An octavo book should be approximately 1.5 times the size of your smartphone or slightly larger.

What should you look at when you choose Octavio book size?

1 - Octavo sized books shouldn`t be too wide, it will be a problem to hold it in your hands and it shouldn`t be too long otherwise it makes it hard to keep it open. My personal opinion: Octavo`s best size proportions are 2:3 or something close to this ratio.

2 - Book margins are very important aspect as well. A book should have wide margins, that's what makes the book pages look pretty. Small margins look really depressing to the eye. The General rule - bigger books require bigger margins.

3 - Books should not be very heavy. If the book is too heavy it is not comfortable. The maximum comfortable weight of the book is 3-4 lbs., more than that is too heavy. Books with more than 900 pages are already suspicious, because probably they will be too weighty (book's weight depends on a paper type as well, but 900 rule could be used as a general idea).

So, these are the few hints for your comfortable reading, read good books.

We would also like to offer you our book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, which weighs around 1.5 lb.