Essays

A short history of the paperback

Readership

23 Aug 2026 · 1 min read

The paperback was an act of contempt for the book as an object, and it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to reading. ## Cheap, and therefore everywhere When a book costs less than a sandwich, it travels.

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Essays

What booksellers actually read on holiday

Spoiler: almost none of it is the thing they have been hand-selling all year.

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23 Aug 2026

Essays

Why we still need bookshops

Algorithms are very good at telling you what you already like. A bookseller is good at telling you what you don’t yet know you like.

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23 Aug 2026