A Matter of Size

Quick, what do RuPaul, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Louisa May Alcott and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis have in common? No, they’re not featured on infomercials, Internet chat lines or dinner theaters in Branford, Mo. What they’ve got is books--either by or about them--in the new size.

“What new size?” you ask. Well just take a look around your local book nook. 8 1/2x5 3/4 is the standard for most hardcovers, with 9 1/2x6 1/2 reserved for bigger, blockbuster-type tomes. However, slowly but surely over the past few years, a different hardcover dimension has been popping up: 8 to 9 1/2 inches high, and 4 to 5 3/4 inches wide. On paper this may not sound like much, but on bookshelves these thin, slim volumes (they’re usually less than 200 pages long) make a striking impression.

“It’s really become a design factor,” explains art director Suzanne Herz of Pantheon books, which recently published Caroline Blackwood’s novel, “The Last of the Duchess,” in the new size. “It’s visually very striking. And the size lends itself to certain things.”

It’s easy to see what Herz means when you’re talking about a book like RuPaul’s “Letting It All Hang Out” (Hyperion). A slim size is perfect for the autobiography of a 7-foot-tall drag queen. But where does “Ghosts in the Mirror” (Grove Widenfield), the memoirs of French nouveau romancier Alain Robbe-Grillet, fit in? And what about “A Long Fatal Love Chase” (Random House), the recently discovered Louisa May Alcott manuscript? And that’s not to mention “Jackie Under My Skin” (Farrar Strauss & Giroux), Wayne Koestenbaum’s meditation on the enduring allure of Jackie O.

“I didn’t have any input on the size of the book, but I really love it,” says Koestenbaum, speaking by phone from his New York home. “It’s great because you can think of it as being kind of like a clutch purse--something she would carry.”

“It’s interesting,” the essayist continues, “but most of the books Jackie edited when she was working in publishing were lavish, oversized affairs. I’ve always liked smaller sizes as a rule because I think they’re somehow . . . sexier for a certain kind of book. Remember those Modern Library editions [5x7]? My favorites are the ones they made for Genet’s ‘Our Lady of the Flowers’ and Gide’s ‘The Counterfeiters.’ And then there’s the size Edmund Wilson chose for his books [7 1/4x4 1/2], which I think are perfect for books of essays.”

Wilson’s size never proved popular. However, the Modern Library’s dimensions have been taken up by Pantheon (“Chez Chance” by Jay Gummerman), Longstreet (“Brown” by James Polster) and Algonquin (“Sharpshooter Blues” by Lewis Nordan).

But wait, there’s more! Chronicle Books has started a new series consisting of short stories and essays about famous cities of the world (Istanbul, Venice and St. Petersburg among them) in a 4 3/4x6 1/4 format. Will it catch on? Stay tuned.