Below is an article I just had published in Biblio Unbound.
For the longest time I disdained softcover books. Two events jolted me out of my snobbery. The first was when an elderly women told me she bought paperbacks because her arms were to weak to hold up a hardcover book while reading in bed. The second event was when I sold a copy of Trixie Belden and the Galloping Ghost, the last book in the Trixie Belden series, available only in paperback, for nearly $100. After that, I began to pay more attention to paperbacks and found that many of them were and still are collectible. Some examples include the old Penny Dreadfuls, Ace Doubles, Big Little Books, Early Penguins, and pulp fiction with lurid cover art.
One series of paperbacks that has always intrigued me is The Armed Services Editions (ASE). These books which were published from 1943-47 were distributed to soldiers at the front. The largest distribution was just before D-Day when each soldier was given a book before boarding the invasion ships.
