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おはようございます。
おはようございます。
So, today I am just going to go straight into the topic because I wanted to talk about reading
in general. Have you read recently? Did you read anything interesting recently? Because
I picked up a new book as of Sunday and this is an English book and we are recording now
on Thursday morning and I am usually a very slow reader when it comes to English books.
I mean, I am speaking relatively though because I do blow through books in Japanese. I mean
depending on what it is obviously, depending on whether it is like philosophical type kind
of like heady dense books versus if it is like a novel. But most novels, if I find it
interesting enough, I can go in one sitting in Japanese, like most kind of like paperback
type books, like 文庫本 size. Also, this is completely not planned, what we were planning
to talk about.
Yeah, plans are meant to be broken.
Can we talk about the beauty of 文庫本 as a standardized size of books that are sold
like a paperback books sold in Japan?
Yeah, I mean we can definitely talk about it. I will admit...
No, I mean like just for a second. Isn't it amazing that like the almost entirety of Japanese
book market have decided that this is a size we are going to call 文庫本 and like, you
know, of course thickness varies because, you know, different books have different lengths
but like the height and width ratio of the book, the flat side of the book is the same
so that you can put everything neatly into your bookshelves and you can even stack on
top of one, you know, 文庫本 line over another if there is enough room because it's
all gonna be flat. Like I think that's just ingenious and the fact that 文庫本 is actually
a pocket-sized book, you know, it's a man-sized pocket, not woman-sized pocket, very annoying
because we women don't have real pockets because somehow clothemakers don't think we need pockets.
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I'm pretty sure we can put that up to patriarchy and misogyny.
That is a story for another day but 文庫本 actually fits into your pocket. Like it's
a size you can carry around easily and I didn't realize what a great design decision that was
until I became more familiar and started reading more English or Western paperbacks because they
come in all sizes, all shapes, and I mean that's kind of fun. Sometimes I totally buy the book by
its cover just because it looks cool. Okay, fair enough. But like it's so hard to keep the physical
paperbacks of English paperbacks because they come in all sizes. I think every publisher just
decides maybe for each book like what they like it to be and yeah it just seems so random and
it's actually not like none of this are actually carryable size like they're actually pretty like
it's like a b5 size at least you know and like if the whole point of paperback is is the
transportability no portability yeah that's what that's what I was looking you know at least
portability relative to the hardcovers right yeah yeah like why why not make it into a pocket
size book I mean maybe maybe Japanese like writing is just more conducive to that kind of standardized
like the kanji hiragana katakana writing like maybe just easier to compress that way in a
standardized size I don't know but anywho that was a tangent I was not planning to go yeah well
so with this tangent I a did not actually know what the term for these was a bunko ball so
bunka bone is now a new vocab for me while you were describing it I also was doing that thing
where my brain listens and attempts to learn more information and realized I guess there's another
word that's for the ones that aren't these particularly small standardized ones which is
tanko bone I guess yeah tanko bone is technically I don't know if it's equals the hardcover because
I think you can have a paperback tanko bone yeah okay it does seem to be something yes yeah me
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obviously not knowing the the roots nor the kanji well maybe I know the kanji for bunka bone but
tanko being like standalone but I think yeah there's there's a there's a big similarity that
you were drawing right between some of the the smaller ones that get done in the States I'm not
quite sure where the differences between them come so for for clarity like in the States those are
mass-market paperbacks are the closest comparison and mass-market paperbacks from what I understood
are after the hardcover releases and or sort of the you know more I'm gonna use the word
artistic form of like the paperback versions might come out you have more like decorative
like ornate right the sort of earlier ones and then the mass markets come out which are you know
more affordable more portable etc however there is some I don't know exactly how this works but I
remember from when I was younger in high school there was a particular mass-market paperback that
was you know being published for a book series that I and a friend of mine liked reading and
about halfway through they switched their sizing like their dimensions for it that's like that's
like unforgivable yeah right so this this obviously created like that weird bump and for
me I was like I don't know I was like I was particular about certain things but I was like
I don't know I guess now they all just go up at that level right this this like ruined the
experience for my body for the longest time is it just she's like your body I could see why
people are I just I was like all right yeah that's it's it's a well actually you know what
we're going a totally different direction but let's just use this one for I guess you know
talking about sure type of type of printing of books right and maybe the collection of them then
we can talk about like what's what's that term for like collecting neither of us work in a publishing
industry no no no we do not work in the publishing industry I'm speaking sort of vaguely from the
bits of knowledge I have from investigating like how to go through the publishing process with
people but okay it's not it's not super clear right so if I say anything on that obviously
these can be different right like for example there is sort of a smattering of information I
know where the authors themselves like the money that they make might not come from what you think
it comes from like a lot of the authors actually getting you know say sales and stuff for all their
other things are getting out there and having to you know do these events with their books and try
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to be present with the books and like present them into place it's like this is how you get you get
like sort of money from types of events like these and then also there's like a big source of money
from those special editions and stuff that are essentially I think I saw a snippet from like
Brandon Sanderson you know maybe a few weeks ago talking about this you know and saying I think this
is the right context but the idea was you know hold on to your special edition rights and stuff
because you can make you can make money off of that right like these are huge type sell things
because people want that and they want something that they can display in some way and which brings
us I think nicely back around to these bookable where they are like particularly designed to be
to be brought and bought and like kept in sort of this very neat and organized way instead of
necessarily standing out in like a sort of flashy way yeah yeah I just looked up yeah just to be
clear tanko bone is not like the bigger version of Bunko bone okay although it often is so tanko
bone just refers to book that is like a standalone so it's not a part of the series it's not part of
like the like a multi-volume things it's typically that the standardized size for tanko bone is b6
so that's 120 a versus 182 millimeters so like okay 13 versus 18 inches like a little bigger
than a palm of your hand probably and Bunko bone is just like a smaller version like a portable
version of any books it can be multi-volume or oftentimes when you convert tanko bone into
Bunko bone you know you like you end up having to make it into a multi-volume because you know
it's a smaller sized book so and so so that's a thing and tanko bone can be hard or soft covers
yeah a Bunko bone is almost always paperback so it sounds like Bunko bone and and they do something
like what they do for what you just described a hardcover that the first edition launching
the paperback edition coming out like a year or so later that's more cheaper and affordable yeah
they do the same thing with Bunko bone like you know oftentimes tanko bone comes out first you
know maybe a year later a few years later depending on how popular the book is they then become Bunko
bone sometimes and then when they become that sometimes authors give like another like a new
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sets of preface or something to like the company and very rarely people like completely rewrite
the content but sometimes there's like a different rounds of addition that happens because you can
imagine like maybe some figures don't fit quite well into the book if you make it into Bunko bone
and things like that so they like shuffle around the texts interesting but like that's that's what
they do but yeah like it's interesting how it works I don't know I know that book tour is a
thing that West off a Western like publishing industry kind of requires author to do right
like they go to bookstores do they book signing and like kind of have an event of some sort you
said that that's one of the like a source of income for authors I think they do in Japan as
well not that I've seen a ton of but sometimes especially if it's like a new release different
bookstores keep like assigned copies like a limited number of signed copies in the store
yeah and like that sort of like supposed to say you know that it's a new release and you know
slightly special or something it's like for the same price but like you know it's like a first
come first serve thing and yeah like I think I've seen those but anywho I wanted to get to
the part about what have you been reading so let's close this episode and start a new one
all right sounds good okay that's it for the show today thanks for listening and find us on
X at a goday science that is EIG ODE SCI ENC see you next time
