Binding
Books are classified under two categories according to the physical nature of their binding. The designation hardcover (or hardback) refers to books with stiff covers, as opposed to flexible ones. The binding of a hardcover book usually includes boards (often made of paperboard) covered in cloth, leather, or other materials. The binding is usually sewn to the pages using string stitching.
A less expensive binding method is that used for paperback books (sometimes called softback or softcover). Most paperbacks are bound with paper or light cardboard, though other materials (such as plastic) are used. The covers are flexible and usually bound to the pages using glue (perfect binding). Some small paperback books are sub-classified as pocketbooks. These paperbacks are smaller than usual - small enough to barely fit into a pocket (especially the back pocket of one's trousers). However, this capacity to fit into a pocket diminishes with increasing number of pages and increasing thickness of the book. Such a book may still be designated as a pocketbook.
Read more about this topic: Book Design
Famous quotes containing the word binding:
“[Government’s] true strength consists in leaving individuals and states as much as possible to themselves—in making itself felt, not in its power, but in its beneficence, not in its control, but in its protection, not in binding the states more closely to the center, but leaving each to move unobstructed in its proper orbit.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“What is lawful is not binding only on some and not binding on others. Lawfulness extends everywhere, through the wide-ruling air and the boundless light of the sky.”
—Empedocles 484–424 B.C., Greek philosopher. The Presocratics, p. 142, ed. Philip Wheelwright, The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc. (1960)
“With a binding like you’ve got, people are gonna want to know what’s in the book.”
—Alan Jay Lerner (1918–1986)