The Review accommodates many voices!

Dutton, a Penguin Random House imprint, releases its first batch of mini books, with a box set of novels by the best-selling author John Green. The tiny editions are the size of a cell phone and no thicker than your thumb, with paper as thin as onion skin. They can be read with one hand — the text flows horizontally, and you can flip the pages upward, like swiping a smartphone.  Over the centuries, publishers have experimented with smaller paperback books, occasionally with great success. In 1939, Pocket Books introduced pocket-size mass-market paperbacks in the United States and sold them in department stores, newsstands, and drugstores around the country. During World War II, an effort to arm American troops with books gave rise to Armed Services Editions, miniature paperbacks that troops carried with them, which helped create a new audience for mass-market paperbacks. But in the last few decades, most of the pivotal advances in publishing have been digital, with the evolu...