Skipping the TBR section this week to go straight into reader emails. Lots of you shared in my sadness over the reported death of the mass-market paperback. Here’s what you had to say.
John L. wrote: “Like many people, young readers especially, the mass market paperback was my introduction to reading something beyond comic books and Boys’ Life or Highlights magazines. (Come to think of it, this includes the Penguin paperback of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green purchased for me at her behest by my great-aunt Carol.) And for some of my friends, it was their entrée into the world of books —and that includes Laura Lippman and Harlan Coben, both of whom I met when they were signing their first novels at Black Orchid Bookshop on the Upper East Side.”
Audrey N. wrote: “In 1977, I was single-handedly responsible for ‘corrupting’ my eighth grade Catholic school class with a copy of Judy Blume’s Forever. After ‘borrowing’ it from my mom’s night table and reading the shocking tale (this definitely was not Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing), I shared it with a few friends, who shared with a few friends … and so on. I eventually got the book back with underlined passages, comments and doodles in the margins. It was also swollen 3 times its size by the last reader having dropped it in a puddle out of shock. I couldn’t put this back in my mom’s drawer! All the girls chipped in their lunch money and we bought a replacement from the local pharmacy. Mom never found out.”
Marlyn B. wrote: “I still have shelves full of mass market paperbacks. And I'll keep them, though they may crumble before I do.”
See you next year!
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