Palm-sized versions of popular books arrive in Canada

If you think books are too big and cumbersome to bother with in the digital age, then one major publisher has a solution for you.

Penguin Random House has started offering some of its titles in a new book format small enough to fit in a pocket or a palm.

The inaugural books to be presented in the Penguin Minis format are all from author John Green, including “Paper Towns” and “The Fault in Our Stars.” More titles will follow next year.

According to the publisher, the books are printed on “ultra-thin paper” and weigh about 140 grams on average. Their pages measure less than 13 cm by 7 cm, and are meant to be read with the book’s small spine aligned horizontally. Penguin Random House says pages “can be turned with the flick of a thumb, much like scrolling on a cell phone.”

Penguin Minis are based on a similar format introduced in The Netherlands in 2009.

An initial print run has produced 500,000 copies of each book. Bookstores in Canada and the U.S. started selling them last week, and some eager purchasers took to social media to share their glee.