AKA pocket sized.
They will still be printed, Harlequin still prints them, IIRC, and others.
Only those automatically shipped, like Harlequin romances.
If you order one, you dont do that.
When I was a kid I found one of those paperback doubles that my older brother had bought years before, though I don’t remember if it was the “Ace” brand. It had two SF stories, “The Brain Stealers” by Murray Leinster, and “Atta” by someone else. I enjoyed both but “The Brain Stealers” was particularly gripping, especially to a little kid. It concerned vampiristic alien creatures who objectively were repulsive and helpless little balls of fur, but who had powerful telepathic abilities that allowed them to control humans and feed on their blood. The paperback is long lost but by incredible dint of luck, I was able to find an e-book version of it so I could relive my childhood. -
Indeed– a lot of my novel collection is that (almost 60 Murder, She Wrote mystery novels, and 12 Michael Palmer medical thrillers [11 of which I’ve read], are the highlights).
I well remember the days of the “drugstore paperback.” Our summer home had a library of them; the Ellery Queen and Agatha Christie mysteries that my Grandmother liked, the Westerns that my Dad liked, the Harlequin romances that my Mom and Aunt liked. They were fun reads. I first read Murder on the Calais Coach (later to become the film, Murder on the Orient Express) from our summer library.
Sad to see that they are going.
And it seems, quite honestly, that for physical books in the future, they’ll either be hards, or trades, both of which are hard to carry on trips or vacations.
Only if you have big pockets.
The nice thing about winter, back in the day, was that I could (and usually did) carry a paperback around with me in the pocket of my coat.
I acknowledge what you did there.
mmm
Damn! Say it ain’t so. I think the bulk of my library is mass-market paperbacks. I’ve got a ton of Penguin Classics (and others in their line).
More to the point, I still haven’t had any of my own books in MMP format, and some of my friends have.
As for thick MMPs, several have been mentioned. I’ll add my copy of the original Roget’s Thesaurus. – the one organized by classification, not as a dictionary. It ran just short of 1500 pages. Lots of fictional works have been pretty damned thick, too. M.M. Kaye’s The Far Pavilions was just under 900 pages. One of my wife’s friends who wanted to read James Clavell’s Noble House in paperback (1171 pages) while soaking in her tub came up with the ultimate solution – she split it in half down the spine and took half with her so she wouldn’t cramp her hand up holding it.
As far as thick MMPs, I remember one of Leonard Maltin’s movie guides clocking in at over 1500 pages back in the early 1990s.
I had Les Mis as a mmp once. It was around 1500 pages.
It was a lot easier to think of MMPs as disposable than other books although it’s surprising how many times they could be repeatedly read before falling apart. At the gas station I worked at in high school, there was a copy of MASH that bore the greasy fingerprints of every bored graveyard shift attendant who worked there over the previous decade. It was a mess but still intact and readable by the time it was my turn to read it.
Some of my older MMPs have lasted a surprisingly long time. The Dutton paperbacks were extremely well-constructed, and have really stood up. On the other hand, the Lancer Conan paperbacks from the late 1960s/early 1970s were coming apart in my hands as I re-read them recently.
Used Paperbacks used to be commonly available. My mom brought bags of them to a place in Little Rock for store credit. The store credit applied to buying used paperbacks from the store.
That place was in business for at least 20 years.
Sometimes they’d reject popular books already in stock. For example, Hunt for Red October. They might have 6 used copies and would refuse to accept any more.
That’s why I strongly dislike Kindle books. You can’t trade or sell them.
I had all those and loved seeing them all together on the shelf. But yeah, the covers started fraying as I was walking out of the bookstore.
They sold for 25 cents in the used book store near me when I was a kid. You would get a 15 cent credit for every one you brought back with their stamp in it. They were located directly across the street from the Library.
Although Used Book stores took a serious hit when internet sites for them sprang up twenty years or so ago, they’re still around. There just aren’t as many of them, and you have to search them out. There’s a “Used Book Superstore” near me, and thrift stores like Savers have big used paperback sections.
This all reminded me, when my mom moved up here to MA in 2003, as we packed her up we discovered that one box of paperbacks that hadn’t been thrown away after I moved out (NB: that wasn’t done in any sense of ill spirit, my parents were just very efficient and thought I was done with them). It’s an eclectic mix, but there are some favorites in there. (and hey @Tamerlane, guess what?)
Yeah, seven-year old me I picked that book based on the cover, but I had inadvertently stumbled into a good one 
(and yes, I did eventually read all of the Eternal Champion books).
I went to the bookstore yesterday to buy some new books. I’m mostly reading e-books, but I wanted
- to support some authers
- to actually own a book, instead of taking it out of the library.
and I really really dislike DRM. So I’ve been buying hardcopies and then stealing a matching ebook to actually read. It’s probably not legal, (although creating my own ebook by scanning the hardcopy myself, for my own personal use, probably is legal, so I’m just cutting out some of the work…)
Anyway, I was dismayed at how physcially huge all the books are. I grew up reading mass market paperbacks. That’s the form factor I expect for a “default” book. Nope, I can only buy huge things.
So I’m sad.
A lot of mine are still in decent shape.
Also, hardcovers have gooten bigger, too. I have a lot of nice old hardcovers that are smaller than anything in the shop. Does no one actually carry books around? Or hold them up while reading in bed?
Well, most of mine still are. Although maybe they’ll surprise me when I try to read them. My Conan novels were still intact when I picked them up to re-read.