Hardcover books are a pleasure to read, especially if they are smyth-sewn. You can identify a smyth-sewn book by placing it on a table and opening it in the mid

Hardcover books are a pleasure to read, especially if they are smyth-sewn. You can identify a smyth-sewn book by placing it on a table and opening it in the middle. If the pages stay flat on top of each other, it is. The pages of a case-bound hardcover will separate from each other and stick out, and a softcover book will just close and fall over. And that is exactly why hardcover books are a pleasure to read: it takes little effort to hold them open. A smyth-sewn hardcover you can pretty much put on a table and leave it alone while reading it. When reading softcovers, my fingers often get tired before my eyes do.