There's been a lot of articles and posts lately about the decline of mass market paperbacks. I've definitely read my fair share of books in this format (like most of us I bet). I'm not very sentimental about the format's decline. I like them, but I have developed vision problems that make pretty much any other format/sizing easier to read. That said, I still find myself reading them under an enlarger because of the shear volume of stuff produced in this format. And I think they are sort of fascinating reflections of popular genres. I could be wrong, but I associate the popularity of genres with the paperbacks I see on thrift store or used bookstore shelves. 50s/60s: mysteries, westerns, and sci fi. 70s: spy fiction and horror. 80s: romance, fantasy. 90s: military and legal thrillers.
These genres are always popular, but I associate them with these decades mostly because of the paperbacks I've been looking through all my life. Often the work was produced with an eye towards marketability, but there's a lot of craft and fun to be found. BUT THERE'S JUST SO MUCH OF IT. Do you all have any little known books that you've found randomly and really liked? The sort of stuff that probably won't wind up on a syllabus; by authors who probably wrote one of these a year? Particularly I'm interested in Westerns because I've never really been able to get into them but they were massively popular. I mean the Louis L'amour tier stuff, not like Lonesome Dove. With so many written for so many decades… there's gotta be a few really good ones right?
by mcahoon718