This is my favorite headline in the longest time. Hats off to their subtle sarcasm.

There's an interesting book about the early subway called Uptown/Downtown.

https://www.amazon.com/Uptown-Downtown-Through-Yorks-Subways/dp/0801581966

Yes. The BMT, IRT, and IND were companies. Some had buses too, but the city legislated the fare the could charge.

The $0.05 was a political thing. Every mayor ran with the promise to keep that fare. It was the cause of the three systems going bankrupt leaving the running of the subway to the city.

You know you are asking for nothing but the pop psychologists and those who like to decide others have prejudices that need to be labeled with negative slurs don't you? You're unlikely to get any real insight. I have none to offer so will remain quiet, although maybe it's simply a preference and so what. Why does someone like Anime, or video games, or those ugly American Place dolls, or a host of all kinds of things that some large section of the population loves but few others get? Who knows why, and what does it matter anyway.

I loved them. I read somewhere that they were huge when they came out starting in 1900, a new one came out every year and they were so popular two decades later, another writer picked them up when he died. It seems they were the go to Christmas present every year for kids.

It's interesting. The publishers have decided that heavy themes are needed, but the public wants fun fluff. And they are providing none of that, so they turn to romance which has it already. And those heavy themes seem to be going nowhere.

Interesting too how there is a parallel in the movie industry. They also seem to have it completely wrong as judged by the large number of box office failures recently.

Now we'll get a deluge of Colleen Hoover type books. Which isn't bad, but it will help dry up the demand quickly as it becomes derivative and oversaturated. Hopefully some good romance and other genre authors wind up finding a huge following before the deluge happens. And hopefully the industry sees that storytelling matters more than their obsession with heavy themes meant to change the world.

And quantity doesn't equal lack of quality either.

LOL. It would be more fun to witness if they didn't always include the same books and authors like they are freethinkers who are the only ones to notice how bad these authors and books are.

Colleen Hoover seems to be the look down your nose queen of the moment. But she's selling more books then the entire rest of the book industry each week and must be laughing all the way to the bank.