Library materials come in all sorts of formats. We have books in print, books in LARGE print, books on cassette, books on cd, downloadable audio books and recorded books on a nifty little gadget called a Playaway. We have movies on vhs and movies on dvd. We have music on cd. Some libraries have downloadable movies. We have magazines, newspapers, microfilm. About the time I have conquered a new device, another one gets invented.

You wouldn’t think that there was much that could be done to change the format of a regular, old book. But, you would be misinformed. There are two versions of paperback books. The smallest form is the mass market paperback. That’s the one we all remember from the spinning racks at the drugstore. Not only have drugstores become a thing of the past, paperback books have been reinvented. The larger format is called a “trade” edition. It is almost the same size as a regular hardbound book. The print is a nice, readable size. Not reduced to microscopic size as it is in the mass market editions. The most noticeable difference from a hardback book is that a trade edition has a soft, paper cover.

The only reason I can see for publishers to bother with trade editions is that it must be less expensive to produce. Sometimes a first book by an unknown author will first come out in a trade version. Sometimes if a more well known author writes something a little different, it will be published in a trade edition. I could easily be wrong, but my guess is that trade editions are produced when the publisher lacks confidence in the marketability of a certain book.

Something else I’ve noticed is that library users don’t check them out very often. When I was in college decades and decades ago, all those dreary novels we had to read for literature classes came in trade editions. I can assure you that we keep all those depressing classics together on a special shelf. You aren’t likely to pick one up accidentally. What we buy now in trade editions are books that have received great reviews in Library Journal or Booklist magazine. Below is a list of new ones. Some are currently on our shelves and some will be released in February.

The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal by Lily Koppel. Koppel found the journal in a Manhattan dumpster. She reads the journal and finally returns it to its original owner, now 90 years old and living in Florida.

Playing With Grownups by Sophie Dahl. The author is the granddaughter children’s author of Roald Dahl and actress Patricia Neal. A health crisis brings young bride Kitty back to her mother’s home. She relives her childhood as she tends her mother.

Now You See Him by Eli Gottlieb. A novel that blends suspense with long buried family secrets in this study of male friendships.

Manic: A Memoir by Terri Cheney. One review of this autobiography of a young woman fighting bipolar disorder calls it “much more than a train-wreak tearjerker.”

Give a “trade” a try!