Link: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/feb/24/america-says-goodbye-paperback

Shelly Romero has early memories of going to her local supermarket and picking pulp fiction off the shelves. “We were very working class; my mom was working two jobs sometimes,” she recalls. “The appeal of books being cheaper and smaller and able to be carried around was definitely a thing.”

For generations of readers, the gateway to literature was not a hushed library or a polished hardback but a wire spinner rack in a supermarket, pharmacy or railway station. There, amid chewing gum and cigarettes, sat the mass-market paperback: squat, roughly 4in by 7in and cheap enough to be bought on a whim.

But the era of the “pocket book” is drawing to a close. ReaderLink, the biggest book distributor in the US, announced recently that it would stop distributing mass-market paperbacks. The decision follows years of plummeting sales, from 131m units in 2004 to 21m in 2024, and marks the end of a format that once democratised reading for the working class.

Romero, who grew up in the working-class, Latino and industrial city of Hialeah, Florida, says: “I don’t remember a bookstore. I had the library in Miami Springs across the bridge but in Hialeah around us, what was in walking distance because we didn’t have a car, was the Publix [supermarket] and sometimes we would get books from Goodwill [thrift store] as well.

“They had that democratic aspect to them where you can just find them anywhere and it always felt like it was the pick ’n’ mix candy-type store where there is something here for everyone, whether it’s the Harlequin romance novel or something very pulpy like a sci-fi or horror novel that you could quickly get.”

I just wish we got the lower prices we were promised with ebooks. MMP have been cheaper in my experience than the ebooks. I bought all the Stormlight Archive books in MMP then "backed them up digitally" to read them on my e-reader because it's so much more convenient. Still need to fish a few of them.

Really america as a whole just doesn't read though so I can't say I'm surprised. I'm literally the only person in my entire service center that reads for pleasure.

I read nonfiction for pleasure. Weird, I know, but hear me out. There's been a noticeable decline in quality. I read a ton of nonfiction because I like learning new things. Mary Beards SPQR, Cobalt Red by Kara, hell even First Principles by Ricks. Those are fewer and far between now. I've read more nonfiction that are dumbing down otherwise interesting concepts or, worse, just plainly bad writing (couldn't get beyond page 50 or so of Shade by Bloch; interesting concept horrible approach to sharing it). There are so many like Shade now that treat the reader like an idiot, use clickbait style titles and writing, that its getting hard to find new and unfamiliar topics to learn about.

Then there are the prices. Holy. Shit. The prices. I use my library, even ebooks, now. But I loved having real pages and keeping books on the shelf to re-read. Marking them and taking notes. I can't now as its too expensive to buy books.

Its a sad, sad time.

Paperbacks are ridiculously expensive now - even Penguin, which was started to put out classics at affordable prices. I’m making the most of my local library.