End of the Line

Recently, several readers sent me a link to this article, heralding the possible demise of mass market paperback books, a format near and dear to me as someone whose introduction to fantasy, science fiction, and horror during the 1970s and '80s was, in large part, facilitated by it. I read the piece with a mixture of resignation and sadness, not because the news was especially surprising, but because it confirmed something I’d felt for some time, namely, that this particular way of encountering books (and being shaped by them) is quietly slipping out of the world.

Now, the mass market paperbacks I remember were never glamorous. Their paper was cheap and their bindings fragile. I suppose you could say that they were disposable and yet that very disposability was part of its appeal. These were books meant to be carried, loaned, lost, rediscovered, and reread until they quite literally fell apart. They could easily fit into your back pocket, coat pocket, backpack, or even inside an RPG box. These were the books I saw on spinner racks in libraries, drugstores, and supermarkets, offering strange worlds and exciting stories for the low, low price of $1.95. What a bargain!

More than that, though, the mass market paperback was an engine of cultural transmission. Entire genres flourished because they could circulate so widely and cheaply. The lurid covers, the cramped type, the promise of adventure or terror compressed into a few inches of shelf space all contributed to their success. They also shaped expectations and tastes. Through them, I learned how to browse, how to take chances, and, contrary to conventional wisdom, how to judge a book by its cover. The format also encouraged promiscuous reading. Today, I'd grab a sword-and-sorcery novel, tomorrow a horror anthology, and later a space opera with ideas far bigger than its physical dimensions.

Perhaps I exaggerate, but this saddens me. To lose the mass market paperback seems to me not simply to lose a format. It's also to lose a set of habits and experiences tied to it, like casual discovery, which played a huge role in the youthful development of my tastes. Trade paperbacks and hardcovers are finer physical artifacts and digital books, though I personally loathe them, are indeed convenient, but none of these quite replaces the humble paperback’s role as a quiet conspirator, introducing new authors and ideas into as many hands as possible.

If this is indeed the end of the mass market paperback format, then let it be said that it did its work so well that it became invisible. The mass market paperback asked for little and gave a great deal in return. For many of us of a certain age, it was not merely a way of reading but the way we learned to love reading. Its passing marks the end of an era, not just in publishing, but perhaps in how new readers are made. It's another quiet reminder that I am old and the world that made me is rapidly receding into the distance.