Is it my imagination, or are the myriad paperback books on my shelves looking just a wee bit prouder this week?
As The Baltimore Sun’s Read Street blog observes, it was 75 years ago this week that Penguin Books “brought out the first modern paperback. The idea came from British publishing exec Allen Lane, who was seeking a respite from a Depression-era revenue slump. The cheap, convenient, color-coded format caught on with readers and within months Penguin books were selling in the millions. Today, half of the books bought each year are softcover, the [U.S.] Census Bureau says.”
READ MORE: “Paperback Birthday Update,” by Bill Crider (Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine); “Happy Birthday, Penguin,” by Sheila Connolly
(Poe’s Deadly Daughters).
Thursday, July 29, 2010
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1 comment:
Happy Birthday paperback book and Penguin. My collection is also sitting proudly on my shelves.I'm disappointed not to see anything about this in the UK press. I'm now going to search through my collection to see if I can find one from 1935.
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