The airport novel represents a literary genre that is defined not so much by its plot or cast of stock characters, but by the social function it serves.
Designed to meet the demands of a very specific market, airport novels are superficially engaging while not being necessarily profound, usually written to be more entertaining than philosophically challenging.
The description "airport novel" is mildly pejorative; it implies that the book has little lasting value, and is useful chiefly as an inexpensive form of entertainment during travel.
[4] Early in the history of rail transport in Great Britain, as longer trips became more common, travelers wanted to read more than newspapers.
Although Athenaeum reported that year that the company "maintain[ed] the dignity of literature by resolutely refusing to admit pernicious publications", The Times—noting the enormous success of The Parlour Library—surmised that "persons of the better class, who constitute the larger portion of railway readers, lose their accustomed taste the moment they smell the engine and present themselves to the railway librarian.