Comments on: Bring Back the Mass Market Paperback! http://conversationalreading.com/bring-back-the-mass-market-paperback Reviews, interviews, news, and lots of opinion on world literature Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:22:43 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Ryan http://conversationalreading.com/bring-back-the-mass-market-paperback/comment-page-1#comment-8833 Ryan Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:03:00 +0000 http://conversationalreading.com/?p=7238#comment-8833 Oh, I absolutely love those old seventies paperbacks. I have a ton of them. A particular favorite that I own is William Gass's Omensetter's Luck. It was so weird to find that with the illustrated cover proclaiming it "Dazzling!" in bold letters. The problem I see with bringing them back is that currently mass-market paperback is synonymous with "airport read" and the covers to all those books, from sci-fi to romance to thriller, are uniformly atrocious. Now, some of those old seventies paperbacks have goofy covers, like that one for DeLillo's Players, but a lot of them have pretty great design. However, no one's going to want to read the latest National Book Award winner if it looks like a James Patterson book, with all the super-large font and crap. Oh, I absolutely love those old seventies paperbacks. I have a ton of them. A particular favorite that I own is William Gass’s Omensetter’s Luck. It was so weird to find that with the illustrated cover proclaiming it “Dazzling!” in bold letters.

The problem I see with bringing them back is that currently mass-market paperback is synonymous with “airport read” and the covers to all those books, from sci-fi to romance to thriller, are uniformly atrocious. Now, some of those old seventies paperbacks have goofy covers, like that one for DeLillo’s Players, but a lot of them have pretty great design. However, no one’s going to want to read the latest National Book Award winner if it looks like a James Patterson book, with all the super-large font and crap.

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