I also think people get outraged when you present a well-constructed response to what is actually a false, strawman representation of their views.

I'm confused about the mention of paperbacks as some cheaper and thus mass accessible version of hardbacks. Surely that started well before the interwar period, with the penny dreadfuls and dime novels of the late 1800s.

People get outraged when you tell them how they should think,

but the fact that the argument has no (obvious) logical holes causes cognitive dissonance because it's harder to phrase why you dislike it.