I was reading George Eliot’s Felix Holt: The Radical last week and the Penguin paperback basically disintegrated. Toward the end I was picking up pages off the floor and reinserting them in a futile effort to keep some semblance of authorial intent.

And it occurred to me that while Penguin does us a huge service by making great texts cheaply available at least in some form, their books are deplorable as examples of book-making. Most of my extensive collection of Penguins make me unconsciously careful when I reach for them.

I compared that to my old paperback Ignatius Press series: fantastic paper, binding, stitching, glue. They’ve shown no sign of deterioration in decades of hard reading.

And that thought led me back to the old Everyman series: bound in leather, gorgeous books, and sturdy: I have two copies of Lord Dunsany’s Book of Wonder printed in the 1920’s and 1930’s that are in fine shape, though the paper is a lovely yellow and smells of vanillin in the best way.

I’ve got a few Bibles and a Quran that I’ve had forever: religious people are awfully careful to make sure their books last.

What are your best physical books?