I must be an oddity in never having bought a book because I appreciated the layout of its pages. Neither have I ever been dissuaded from buying a book because I disliked the layout of its pages.
I have never in my life passed judgement on a book I haven't read, no matter how its pages were laid out - but I am sometimes prepared to say harsh things about books I have read and found to be inaccurate, misleading, poorly researched, dull, badly written or badly edited. The page layout of such a book does not interest me in the slightest. I'm not too fond of speculative material either.
I am ready to spend a lot of money if a book appears to have original secret project drawings in it I've never seen before, or promises to shed new light on a subject I care about. Books which offer accurate technical details hitherto unknown about secret project aircraft designs, particularly British cold war or German WW2, have my full attention.
When I buy a book, the first thing I do is look at the pictures. I shouldn't but I do. Are there any new discoveries to be seen? Then I read the text. How does the author tackle the subject? What is the book saying? What are the key points, the arguments, the lines of enquiry? Is the author telling a straight history or do they have an agenda I can discern by reading between the lines? I mull over their conclusions and think about the points that struck me as incongruous or inspired.
When I have absorbed everything else, I look carefully at the footnotes (if there are any) to see whether there are any sources in there I haven't already investigated myself. Then, if the book struck me as solidly researched and reliable, or as having some other point of merit (despite not being solidly researched and reliable), I put it on my shelf. Otherwise, it goes in one of the 50 litre boxes in the garage - an unfortunate waste of money and a problem for another day.
I know that some people dislike pages designed a certain way, but the way a page is laid out tells me nothing about the secret projects described on it.
