That's right, I decided that I'd had enough, and one night not long ago I tore this book up into little pieces. Those little pieces are called 'pages', and here is why I did it.
This tiny phrasebook has all of the elements you need for learning Chinese, while you are learning the basics of the language. (I suppose a phrasebook can be used while traveling, too.) The pages are color-coded according to topic (intro red, shopping blue, dictionary purple, etc). Every phrase has both Pinyin (yes the new editions returned to it) and Hanzi, alongside the English sentence. The print and colors and illustrations are all high-quality. There are frequent asides, with details, comments, history.
Many phrases have a basic pattern, and then variations. For example and without bothering with tones or expanded font-sets, the phrase:
Youmeiyou ... shipin?
... qingzhen
... youtai
... sushi
asks "Do you have ... food?" with variations of "halal", "kosher", and "vegetarian", under the subsection of "Vegetarian & Special Meals".
Of course, a student already knows you-mei-you as one form of asking a yes/no question, and the hanzi is right there in the central column. The Pinyin on the right-column is the guide for pronunciation.
Why then, is this book now lying in a small pile of scattered paper on the desk? Very simple. The sections are too linear and sequential. I tire of reading page after page of the same topic.
For a while now, I have wished the information in this book was in the form of index cards. There are printed cards available for individual characters, there are countless websites for learning. Where is the middle-ground, of phrases in card form?
It's right here, in this phrasebook. All you need to do, is rip the pages out of the binding.
And so that's what I did. One page at a time, carefully. I now have random page after page, of Chinese phrases, common situations, vocabulary, hanzi characters to practice writing. The pages are small enough that I can carry them around anywhere. The original cover is used to stuff the pages in, to keep some semblance of order.
How else could I have gotten a print version of small, handheld "cards" that allow me to practice Chinese sentences on virtually any subject imaginable anytime, anywhere, for less than ten bucks?
So that's why I did it. I do what I want!