Some of the worst books I have seen are the print-on-demand ones by Springer. It’s tragic that pretty much all of their math books from the past 10–15 years are only available in this format. Springer used to produce very nice books up through the 1990s.
Urge your colleagues/teachers to stop publishing their books with Springer.
https://www.math.upenn.edu/~chai/story/story18.pdf
"""We reported this to Rachel, Heinze and Kölsch. Rachel responded promptly. As regards the material used for the cover, she informed us that
“The word cloth is a semantic term that incorporates many different types of covers, including this one.”
It was illuminating to learn that Springer can no longer tell the difference between cloth and paper. Imagine how much money the new owners of Springer could save if, instead of wearing suits made of cloth, Springer management switched to paper suits; no one at Springer would be able to tell the difference. On rainy days this could pose a problem, but we know that Springer has suppliers with plentiful stores of glue. If Springer repairs its paper suits with the liberal quantities of glue it uses in its books, then board meetings could turn into stiff, uncomfortable affairs. """
Nice to hear that a better version is available. I wish the online listings made it clearer what you'd get.
When I ordered a new Knuth volume 4A and found it couldn't be comfortably read -- you had to hold this heavy book open firmly at just the right angle or else the text on the inner margin would start to edge into hiding -- it was the last straw. Reading it in bed was an exercise in weightlifting. Even Knuth can't stop this? People can warez e-books instead, you know.