The Narthex
Farewell to the Pocket Paperback
Should a society that makes books too expensive be surprised there’s a decline in reading?
By John M. Grondelski | February 12th 2026 12:28 PMWe 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…
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