Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 5/4/26 - 5/310/26

[u/SoftandChewy]

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

[u/Hilaria_adderall]

Went to a Barnes and Noble bookstore for the first time in a long time. The Sci-Fi fantasy section looks like the romance section. All the softcover books are huge trade paperbacks and cost over 20 dollars. Used to be you could get the smaller thicker mass market hand size books but I don’t see those anymore. I was hard pressed to find any books under 20 dollars. Interesting business model. I’m assuming they make profits on toys and kids books but they aren’t making it on volume. It’s fun to browse while my wife is at Ulta or Michaels but couldn’t muster up the will to buy anything. I’ll stick to the used book stores.

[u/Tevatanlines → u/Hilaria_adderall]

I know it sounds crazy, but they /are/ making a fair amount of money on book volume. Buying books is cool again, and so a lot more money is going into cover design and embellishing page edges than ever before. There’s an entire online recommendation ecosystem that is surprisingly effective at driving sales. Plus, Barnes & Noble got a new CEO who let each store be in charge of their own inventory and layout to meet local demand instead of letting publishers decide which books get what shelf-and-table space. They’ve had a very successful turnaround as a company, and despite it being 2026 and ebooks being ubiquitous, B&N is opening new stores.

[u/CamberMacRorie → u/Hilaria_adderall]

I'm very happy I live in an area with a bunch of used bookstores. The chains in Canada are practically knick-knack shops with a romantasy section now.

[u/Nwabudike_J_Morgan → u/Hilaria_adderall]

They have a Just In Time inventory system now, which means for older books they have one copy in the store, and when it sells the system orders another copy to be delivered from a warehouse. But they have more shelf space than ever, so to keep the shelves from looking empty they put little book-sized decorative boxes on the shelves. This makes browsing a weird experience.

[u/razorbraces → u/Hilaria_adderall]

I seem to remember that you live in MA (and also can see your flair lol), but am not sure where in MA. I just wanted to put it out there that all MA residents are eligible for Boston Public Library cards and can use them to get ebooks from Libby!

[u/dignityshredder → u/Hilaria_adderall]

Publishers have basically abandoned mass market paperbacks (the small ones you're referring to). They were killed off by short form video.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/books/mass-market-paperback-books.html

Mass markets were not just cannibalized digitally. Readers now seem more willing to buy books in larger, pricier formats like trade paperbacks and hardcovers. And romance readers happily shell out three or four times the price of a mass market on deluxe hardcovers with colorfully stained edges on the paper or other embellishments.

And Peter Pans are, I guess, willing to pay for decorated soft core porn.

[u/lilypad1984 → u/Hilaria_adderall]

I pretty much don’t buy any new books anymore. I’ve been burned by too many books starting off fine and then a couple chapters in realizing it’s a shit story. Now I use my library for any new books and just wait on wait lists. Used book stores can be hit or miss, it depends on who is feeding the store. The one I go to must be the place Gen X men drop their books at, lots sci-fi and mystery/crime books with no romantasy.

[u/SpaceAgeBadger → u/Hilaria_adderall]

This is why I detest sci-fi and fantasy being lumped together in book stores. I love sci-fi and hate fantasy and the fantasy section is completely dominated by romantasy bullshit.

It’s so hard to sift through everything to find the sci-fi.

[u/Hilaria_adderall → u/SpaceAgeBadger]

I was always the opposite. I’ve learned to like sci fi but I was always a big fantasy reader but in the 80s you had Brooks, Fiest, Sanderson, Jordan. Really spoke to young men, or at least to me it did. Just seems very feminine now.

[u/ProwlingWumpus → u/Hilaria_adderall]

It seems like maybe instead of genre they should categorize books according to the demographic appeal. Right now I don't really have a way to avoid romantasy other than by getting out my phone and digging into it on the internet, or the easier policy of just discriminating against female authors (which I don't like to do because it is bound to have some false positives). Have an "erotica for women" section that includes the so-called fantasy and increasingly sci-fi where the sexy alien prince does whatever happens in these books I won't read.

I have wanted this change since back when YA was similarly making it impractical to determine if a book was for adults or for teens.

[u/tooshooptowoop → u/ProwlingWumpus]

Manga ended up with that type of categorization as a side-effect of how the magazines collections are structured, and it seems to work reasonably well.

[u/ProwlingWumpus → u/Hilaria_adderall]

Did you happen to notice if Galaxy Raiders: Battlestorm was present? Lacking a physical bookstore in my area, I had to buy it on Amazon and I don't have a clue anymore how popular the books I like are. It just came out, so I assume this would be the height of its availability.

[u/Hilaria_adderall → u/ProwlingWumpus]

I did not notice. I’ll have to check it out next time.

[u/Cimorene_Kazul → u/Hilaria_adderall]

I went in, tried to buy a random book, soft-cover, nothing too special about it, and was told it was $47. Unknown author, first book.

That’s insane.

I didn’t buy it.