Livre de Poche

I just started reading the new book by Paul Beatty, Slumberland (check out the LA Times review here). Like his other stuff, it's fantastic & y'all should give it a whirl. I think I'm gonna to use it in African American Lit this fall, but the references to fisting are a bit more overt than in The White Boy Shuffle, his 1st novel, not to mention the nearly constant discussions of bestiality regarding a porn film which features a dude fucking a chicken. It's funny & 99% of my students will be fine w/ it, but I know someone will complain. I'll be sure to keep you all updated about that. I didn't log in to really plug a book though. The thing is, this is the 1st time in ages that I've read a hard cover book. In fact, I can't remember the last time I did this. I always wait for the trade paperbacks. I feel one can't really curl up w/ a hard cover, which is pretty stupid because I don't technically "curl up" w/ paperbacks either. My reading techniques involve sitting rather upright on the couch, laying in bed, sitting on the porch or reading @ work. I suppose the bed would allow for curling up, but I don't read in long enough chunks to really do that. Usually, about a 1/2 hour is all I do @ 1 sitting... I've got Hogan's to watch & soccer to play & Arsenal info to look up on-line & in a couple weeks, papers to grade. Anyway, what I'm wondering is what you, dear readers, prefer to read. Do you like the hardness of the newest cloth bound tomes or do you like the wrinkled old pages of a newly discovered mass market paperback edition of the novelization of Top Gun or Rambo (both of which I read... borrowed... but never returned... from my Grandfather... when I was in middle school)? As a side note, it turns out that Marty Schictman actually knows the guy, a Medievalist from Iowa. Apparently, he wrote First Blood & then sold the film rights to Stallone who gained the rights to write the sequel which the original author then novelized. Anyway, what's your poison?