Perth Amboy evening news., 1921-11-15

WASHINGTON, d. c., Nov 12-
The Dook week recently celebrated
in New York has already had it's
imitators in the form Of book
weeks and book fairs in other cities,
and there are only a few of the
many symptoms that the United
States of America, known the
world over as the most waterfalls
tic and unintellectual of countries,
has suddenly developed an interest
in hooks many times greater than
it w had before.
Books are selling in America at
an unusual rate, and some are
reaching very high totals of cir
culation, but the significant fact is
not 30 much the number as the
character of books that are being
sold. Various periodicals and book
sellers publications put out from
time to time lists of books most in
demand at book stores and al pub
lie Libraries. These are surely the
best possible index to what the peo-
! pie are reading and they show that
Americans are reading better books
than eve before.
In former years these best seller
and books most in demand at libra
lJtS htIt ailitOSI dIt vi hAAihS ia
had proved their commercial value.
just as certain brands of soap. per-
fume and tooth powder have done.
They were trade goods, purely,
having no literary value and often
pretending to none.
The principal types of these
standard traN novels were the
wild west story. the detective oil
mystery story. the southern noun
taineer. feud and moonshine story,
and the domestic sentimental love
story, and the moral-pornography
story, in which the hero and hero
inc go through a long series of SEX
ual gymnastics hallowed in the end
by rnatrimony.
Novels of these types have ap-
peared in this country every spring
and fall for many years as regu-
larly as the seasons come around.
Some of them have beer written
with genuine skill and have really
entertained readers of certain large
classes. Others have been so fee
Bile in conception and execution as
to bore even the travelling salesman
and the ladies afflicted with insom-
MIA and idleness Who make up so
large a part of the reading public.
All of them were made according
to a well worn formula and he'd nc
mere relation 10 the life they pur-
ported TO depict or to any other
phase of life than movies of ;he
poorer sort. They were the literary
successors to the dime novels-to
diamond Dick" Mick Carter
Ten Nights in a Bar Room. East
Lynne" and ''Why Girls Leave
! IIavNaa - ThAea hau+ cA1IAra ne tha
last generation were often bound
in gaudy paper covers and sold very
cheaply. They were widely read
But their reputation became
steadily worse. Dime novel and
paper back mover and yellow
back novel, became terms of re
prOach and contempt. People were
ashamed to be caught reading then
Their vogue declined, but not the
appetite for cheap illusion( ma
chine-made thrill. easy moralizinl
and vicarious eroticism which they
fed. Accordingly the dime move
merely changed its dress. 1t Wa:
bound in boards. illustrated an:
sold at a price hat slowly advanc'
ed from 80 cents to 50. A book tina
would have been sneered at in pa
per cover was devoured in board
covers II was not mat the pup
lie taste had changed, but simpl!
that the paper cover was no Longer
respectable. SO strong was III,
reyersioH against paper covers tina
most book sellers will not toda!
stock a book in paper overs. l
was recently urged by a promi-
neut British man of letters that tn
first novels of young writers b
brought out in paper covers so tina
the cost of such an uncertain vent
ure would not be so great. He wa
laughed at. Nc one would buy any
thing in a paper cover.
Meantime. Diamond Dick" ha
gone marching on in respectabl
board lovers. He has merely chang
ed his name to "Pie-eyed Pete o
Polecat Canyon or 'Stutteriri
Simpson" or ne has put on skirt
and run wild Is Scrap of the Laz
X" or Susan of Piute pass" Hi
name is legion and always he is tn
same. When the reader opens a will
west story he knows just what h
Is going to find-a beautiful gil
who rides wild horses "a strap
ping COW puncher who is a cross be
tween Sir Galahad and Billy Sun
day. a villain. usually Mexican q
half-Dreed, who is coming to a ba
; end after a nefarious attempt o
the heroine's virtue. The actio
will be plastered with puzzle sun
sets ,rock-walled mazes OF mystic
rious canyon. shimmering league