The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-10-27
{ROU'vE asked me to tell you my
 )( impressions of the book situa-

S ton in Birmingham after six candid and say that the people of Bir- iningharn do not buy books as they should and while there are more good books published now than ever before. there has been a noticeable decrease in
 interest until the war began"
 This expression regarding the reading public of Birmingham, from MT. w.. J.. Doxy, the manager of the book depart ment of the big Loveman, Joseph < Loeb store will TO doubt surprise many in this community.
 Mir. noxy is in position to know. Therefore | asked him. He is live wire, enthusiastic, capable, well informed, abls. He learned the book trade back in the days wher rls father owned Doxy's Book Store in the Palace hotei in San Ffan- cisco. later publishing the bright pefic1i- gal EnCWn as The Lark, the first CT the "Chap -Philistine-Sag Philosophy type of magazine which ap- peared, and which was so ally edited hy Golett Burgess, who afterward followed on his brilliant editorship of The Lark with "The Purple Cow' Are You Bromide?" and his latest very clever story. Mrs. Hopes Husband.a
 "The book trade and merchandise are two very different propositions MT. Doxy informed me, and the combination makes for the modern equipment of the department store book manager. From the regular old-fashioned book store emerged into department store work, ana for many years have been engaged Ill this line of work in Chicago. Coming here from Chicago last May and afflilat- ing myself with Loveman. Joseph & Loeb as manager of their book department the first thing I did was to have big clearing house sale of the classics. l found many handsome books, Scott, Vic tor Huga, Dickens, George Eliot. de Mali pasant, Turgeniev, D'Annunzio-evefy- body of any importance in the real poJh world--and [ made a sweeping statement in headlines in the newspapers to the effect that these books would be sold Ill two lots. one at 65 cents and the other at s1. The dollar books bound in leather | could not duplicate now at anything ap- proxin1ateiy that price. Of course, sucn an announcement in Chicago would have rceant an onslaught like the allied forces are putting up on the Germans, some where in France. But what happened in Birmingham? Maybe q dozen, probably two dozen people wandered in listlessly and rather unconcerned, and inquired about the books The sale was dismal i failure, and I felt that I was, too. Dis couraged, I didn't know where to turn nor what to say"
 whats the matter with Birmingham s 1 reading public?" This is the question lT asked myself '"I don't know, said I, l and then I began to investigate. Was 1 it the circulating libraries? Perhaps, so 1 we closed ours. In the western cities, cir culating libraries had meant great deal | to department stores. They encouraged people to read and then to buy books. I But not so here. Was it that Birming- 1 ham is too busy making money to read 1 Could it be that the chequebook meant more to people than the standard books? 1 Up to the present moment the riddle IS I still unsolved, but I'm not nearly so dis couraged because something has hap pened. It is the war; it has developed the 1 book situation 50 per cent. The book in ] dustry is among the few which hasn't l been hurt by the war. The only way the i war has hurt the book trade is that SC
 
 1 joined the army and the publishers cant get books out fast enough.
 There is a tremendous increase in the l interest in war books, MT Doxy said MT. Brittling." Christine" "Over the Top" Short Rations," No Mans Land I "Mr Gerard in Germany all the books | written about the war, are in demand, ane rightly so, because they are history. They are books which in future years will be l of interest to other generations and ths I story of the most frightful carnage humanity has ever known is written or their pages for posterity to peruse.
 There are so many more able writers now" MT. Doxy said, than formerly Take, for instance, 10 years ago. wher l Mary Johnston your Birmingham author s wrote book. It was nothing for bool 4 department to order 800 copies. Todd,
 with Gertrude Atherton. Mrs. Wharton
 Cosmo Hamilton, H. G. Wells, Gales -