I know that the publishing gods, in their infinite wisdom, saw fit to categorize some books as oversized; bound newspapers, reproductions of art, etc. This, though. This is utterly ridiculous.
Three feet tall. Two feet wide. four inches thick. Easily weighs 10 pounds. This is not a book; this is a monstrosity, not for any reason other than its totaly impracticality. When this thing was printed 50 years ago I'm sure the most modern page preparation and binding techniques were utilised to make sure it'd last forever. Times have changed, however; the covers are deteriorating, the pages are slowly turning to dust, the binding glue is slowly evaporating into the ether. This is a book you'd be insane to actually open because who knows what will blow away in the wind once the cover is lifted. I have become quite gifted at judging a book by its cover, it seems. I should also note that this volume was designed to be archived - it hasn't been touched in decades, wasn't anywhere near the circulating stacks. Instead it was kept in a hot, stuffy, humid warehouse. In conditions like those it doesn't matter how well the thing is bound, it'll still fall apart much sooner than if the damn thing had been taken care of in the first place. So now it's up to me to get this thing into a somewhat stabile condition.
I stare at it, and its ninety-nine identical siblings. Why isn't it tomorrow yet?