Actually, one of the distinguishing features between fake books is the size of print used. Some will put a song on a single page, relatively big print, easy to read. Others put two (or three) songs on a page. Obviously, print is much smaller. Some will split a song between pages. If it starts on the left and finishes on the right page, this may be bearable, but I hate to have to TURN pages to finish the song. The "Little" book series put this information into a smaller page size (rather than the standard 9x12) and, as a result, use very tiny print. My eyes couldn't cope with that.

Amazon has started offering a very useful service. Go to www.Amazon.com, search in Books for "Fake Book". You will notice in the list of hits some flagged with a "Look Inside" message. Amazon has provide a peek at the contents of various books with this feature. You can actually see what kind of print is used to show the songs and how they look. A nifty feature if you can't be browsing in a book store! You may also find the customer "reviews" helpful in making a selection.

Personally, I liked the Ultimate Fake Book (1200 songs, #1 in popularity) for the songs included, but I didn't like the hefty size. I thought it was so big and heavy it would wind up breaking the stand on my keyboard so I wound up dividing it into smaller components. I also liked the Ultimate Jazz book and the Wedding and Love Songs fake book. But what you like will be highly dependent on the kind of music you want to play.