Q&A for How to Choose Between Paperback and Hardback Books

A hardcover book is bound with a thick cover that protects the internal pages well because they cannot be bent outside the cover.

As per the article, it really depends on your reading habits and personal preferences. Need a durable book to withstand a lot of wear and tear, to be put in a backpack, to be read while traveling on a train, bus, car, etc? Go hardback. Do you need a lightweight, smaller book, which will be comfortable to read while relaxing on the couch or lying in bed? Go paperback.

A compact version book is just an edition of the same book but with less information. The book is usually summarized to make it brief or fit a certain condition. Meaning it has fewer pages but covers roughly the same material.

Not really. It's more about the size of the font and formatting.

It depends on your preferences and how much you read. If you read a lot, hardcovers are better, because paperbacks aren't quite as durable. But, if you need something cheaper, paperback works just fine unless you want them to look pretty.

If you're leaving the book at home, whichever has the widest space in the margins and between paragraphs is best. If you're taking it with you - or several textbooks - a paperback is easier to carry around.

It should be, but occasionally one publisher will offer an extra illustration, or a colour map which is only black-and-white in other pressings, or an extra preface or afterword (if the book is a newer edition), etc. The quickest way to tell is to check the contents page. If one contains a foreword/preface/introduction and the other doesn't, read it - it may tell you that this addition contains extra information, or may make it clear that the only difference is the introduction itself.

It depends on what kind of book collection you want. Paperbacks are usually less expensive, so if you want to build a large collection quickly, that's what you should go for. If you want to expand your collection slowly and enjoy it for a longer period of time, hardbacks are a better choice. If you want to start a collection that can grow either quickly or slowly, but that's more unique, I would suggest going after the most appealing cover art.

"Value paperback" isn't a set term, so it can vary depending on the publisher, but value paperbacks are usually produced much more cheaply (and thus are cheaper to buy) than regular and trade paperbacks.