{"id":7217,"date":"2026-08-13T10:00:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T14:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/?p=7217"},"modified":"2026-08-13T08:15:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T12:15:04","slug":"pulps-in-a-postliterate-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/2026\/08\/13\/pulps-in-a-postliterate-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Pulps in a postliterate world"},"content":{"rendered":"

In its August issue, The Atlantic<\/em> ran \u201cThe End of Reading Is Here,\u201d<\/a> by Rose Horowitch<\/strong>. It argued that Americans process more words than any generation before us \u2014 texts, posts, captions, threads \u2014 while the sustained attention that a book demands is slipping away. Horowitch\u2019s word for this is postliterate<\/em> rather than illiterate.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Fewer than half of American adults read a book of any kind in 2022. The share who read for pleasure on any given day fell from 28 percent in 2004 to 16 percent in 2023. And roughly 20 percent of adults now account for more than 80 percent of all books read.<\/p>\n

A Rutgers historian tells Horowitch that reading is becoming a niche hobby, on the order of stamp collecting.<\/p>\n

Stamp collecting. One of my grandfathers did that. How many stamp collectors do you know today?<\/p>\n

Horowitch frames the whole thing with the Library of Alexandria, which she argues didn\u2019t burn so much as it was neglected \u2014 the will to maintain it ran out before the scrolls did. That threat of apathy got me thinking about this on my long drive back from PulpFest<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n

The BookTubers arrive<\/h3>\n

A lot of us grew up reading pulp stories reprinted in paperback books, from science fiction, horror, and fantasy to pulp heroes and westerns.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned in my PulpFest 2026 report<\/a> last week, attendance hit a record with 487.<\/p>\n

Among the new faces at the convention were \u201cBookTubers,\u201d at least 11 that I know of.<\/p>\n

Just as we read genre fiction in paperbacks, the BookTubers are doing the same. They were already reading in our territory and worked their way back to where it all started. They followed the trail to the pulps just as we did.<\/p>\n

Richard Rempel<\/a><\/strong> (who posts on YouTube under Vintage SF<\/a><\/strong>) and Nick Anderson<\/a><\/strong> (The Book Graveyard<\/a><\/strong>) were kind enough to provide me with lists of other BookTubers who were at PulpFest<\/a> 2026:<\/p>\n

\"Some<\/a>
Some of the BookTubers at PulpFest 2026 (Courtesy of Infinite Text<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n