I am comparing the two books on the right: the red Penguin book was printed in 1946 in the US, while the white Hutchinson book was printed in 2006 in the UK. What interests me is not their contents, but their relative efficiency.
The former looks so much smaller than the latter: fewer resources required to produce it, to transport it, to store it. Is that so?
I estimated that the former contains around 361760 characters, while the latter contains around 661850 characters. The former weighs 100 gr., while the latter weighs 548 gr. Therefore, the red book is three times more character efficient in terms of weight.
The red book's dimensions are 11 cm x 18 cm x 0,8 cm, while the white book's are 15 cm x 25 cm x 3 cm. Therefore, the red book is 4 times more character efficient in terms of volume.
I think it is time publishers started producing again books like the red one.
