From the Narthex
Farewell to the Pocket Paperback
By John M. Grondelski
We are constantly flooded with stimuli — so much so that we often fail to notice when seemingly unrelated developments share a common logic. Consider two recent pieces in The New York Times. In one, Oren Cass criticizes what he calls “financialization”: an economy increasingly devoted not to producing goods but to extracting value through layers of financial manipulation. In another, Elizabeth Harris laments the quiet disappearance of the mass-market paperback book.
At first glance, these topics appear to inhabit different realms. Yet they are symptoms of the same underlying shift: When institutions prioritize margin over mission, accessibility tends to suffer.
Let’s consider the second development, though the first helps illuminate it. The decline of the pocket paperback is not merely a publishing curiosity. It raises a larger question: What kind of reading culture are we prepared to sustain?
Those of us old enough can remember when “reading” meant taking a thing made of paper into our hands, opening it, and turning the pages of what was called a “book.” Those who recall that artifact probably also remember the cheap paperbacks available for $1.99 or so on drugstore racks and elsewhere. (In my boyhood, many were less than a buck.)
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