Richard Osman has shed light on why airports sell books that are “bigger” than those found in regular shops.
In a recent episode of The Rest Is Entertainment podcast, Richard and Marina Hyde explored the topic of “airport editions” of books, which are often larger in size.
Richard, known for presenting Pointless and authoring the best-selling mystery series ‘The Thursday Murder Club’, was well equipped to answer the listener’s query, reports the Express.
He explained: “It’s a red herring that they are in airports at all, really. They’re not really airport editions.
“Every time you do a hardback, you release books first in hardback in the UK. But across the Commonwealth, a lot of those territories do not have a culture of having hardbacks.
(Image: David Levenson/Getty Images)
“In Ireland, for example, you go and they won’t have hardbacks so they have what’s called trade paperbacks. That is before the smaller paperback comes out, a slightly bigger, chunkier, more impressive looking book comes out which has a soft cover.
“It’s the size of a hardback but it has a soft cover and it’s called a trade paperback. And airports, because of their various rules on, you know, tax and all that kind of stuff are able to stock those things and so they do.”
Regarding the size, he continued: “The reason they are bigger than a paperback would be, to deliberately, to answer the question, Rebecca, is the paperback isn’t out yet.
“But the reason they have them in airports is if you’re going to have something that’s the size of a hardback, might as well have it with a soft cover because that’s easier to carry and easier to have around.”
Richard praised these “airport exclusives” as “great” and revealed he gets excited whenever he encounters a trade paperback at an airport.
(Image: Dave Benett/Getty Images)
He concluded by explaining that these editions are only available in various Commonwealth countries and exclusively sold in airports, making them unavailable elsewhere.
In related literary news, The Thursday Murder Club is currently being adapted into a Netflix film. Richard was recently spotted alongside legendary film director Steven Spielberg.
The author shared this moment on his X account, previously known as Twitter, with his 1.2 million followers. The photo also included renowned figures like Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren and Celia Imrie.
Netflix promoted the photo, stating: “Nothing to see here… just @richardosman, actual Steven Spielberg, and a few of their friends on the set of The Thursday Murder Club.”
However, another iconic director, Chris Columbus, known for his work on Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Home Alone and Mrs Doubtfire, is rumoured to be directing the film.
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