For several years, I have recommended play.com at the source for economical English language books.

I no longer recommend them for paperback books. First, they do not provide the size with the description of the item. Second, they seem to deliver whatever size suits them. And they have a variety of excuses (‘we do not know what the publish will send us”). After several recent bad experiences, I contacted the publisher (Penguin). Their comment was, basically, “BS. We ship them whatever format they order. So they know what they are getting”.



I have filed another complaint with play.com. And received a new and different reply.

“Thank you for bringing a valid concern to our attention, i have raised this with the relevant department and they are looking in to this and may be added to the website in the near future.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused you and thank you for your patience and valued custom.”



Until and unless play.com changes their policy, I would avoid them for paperbacks. Still recommend for DVD, hardbacks, etc.



For those we are curious about formats and sizes.



paperback format -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperback



A - 110 x 178

B - 130 x 198

C - 135 x 216

Just curious SnF, is the size of the paperback really that much of an issue for you? I never really thought about it, to be honest.

Well, it is an issue. Why? Not sure.

We have 100's of books on various shelves. But most are on shelves deigned for MMPB books (A format). C format does not fit at all. So when the books are arranged by author, all of a sudden you have a book that does not fit.

The book system belongs to my partner. So please direct comments about the system there.

Besides, the real issue is that play.com does not list the size and, more importantly, that the customer service attitude was basically 'not our problem and nothing we can do about it'.

LOL at the "system". No worries, we all have our quirks, don't we. I was just curious about it.

But the lack of info and most especially the customer (dis)service isn't nice, no.

must admit, I've used play.com for years and been very happy with them. My only gripe is that their email customer service sux. Frequently don't get a response. However, I've given up on it and now just call if I have a problem. Had excellent service from them that way. For instance, I phoned them about I book I didn't receive about 8 months after ordering it (I want's paying attention and only noticed when checking my order history). They offered me a refund or a new copy and I took the refund.

As for size of paperback books. For fiction books, you can usually tell by the price. For non-fiction books, I do sometimes get a surprise at the size.

I agree, the larger paperback books do look out of place on the bookshelf. I always have my books arranged alphabetically by author and hated the sticking up books. Now, I keep the large paperbacks and arrange them in a seperate bookshelf - painful when looking by author, but I know where to look if it's not in the regular shelves. tbh, i prefer the large paperback books, but most books are still small format. As for your book filing system - I can relate. My parents stopped me from using the dewy system at home when I was very young, so had to arrange topics alphabetically and then usually in size (sometimes author) order. I've stuck with that method ever since. My kids books do drive me mad though - just getting them on the correct shelves is mission-impossible, let alone any other order. Then again, they're just little - they have plenty of time to get anally retentive in future

If anyone's looking for an alternative, I've found the English Book Service pretty good. They're based in Germany, so the orders get here very quickly (within a couple of days to a week), and postage is cheap (€3,00 per order - doesn't seem to vary with the number of books). For stuff other than books we usually use bol.com.

ETA: Leeam, I'm grinning at the thought of you at a young age organising all your books by the Dewey system We're a bit chaotic here - one side of the room is fiction, the other non-fiction. The fiction side is roughly organised by author, and the non-fiction by subject, but not in any particular order. This will all have to change when we move house though and all our bookcases don't fit in the loungeroom any more. I think I'm going to develop a nervous twitch trying to work out what to do about that...