noun
cheap fiction; pulp fiction; popular novel
Refers to lowbrow, mass-market fiction, often with a dismissive or derogatory nuance. Can also be used more broadly for any writing considered vulgar or unrefined.
彼は俗書ばかり読んでいる。
He reads nothing but cheap fiction.
この作家の作品は俗書扱いされることが多い。
This author's works are often dismissed as pulp fiction.
Compound of 俗 (vulgar, common) and 書 (writing, book). The exact historical derivation is uncertain, but the term has been used since at least the Edo period to refer to popular or unrefined literature.