Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-03

That the American mind Is not deeply
stldious. but takes its reading in in
termittent and small doses, Is Indicated
by statistics in the hands of the De-
partment OF Commerce aTl1 the ONCE
of education and experience Of the
publishing companies and booksellers.
In spite of the fact that one con-
stantiy is confronted by advertisements
of books, by offers to send whole sets
Of books without any immediate obi
CATION on the part Of the recipient to
remit money by book of the MONTH
week, day and hour clubs, and the fact
that every drug store, news stand, hard
ware store and filling station offers
books for sale, yet the American Ma
ton has fallen below its peak in
book buying, and its book consumption
falls short OF that OF less populous and
less wealthy nations.
The reason seems to be that the
magazines and newspapers take the
place of books to large extent. The
short story was ever an American ia
Vorite and reading still is looked upon
in this country as something a man
should take in his stride and not as q
matter for serious attention Anything
which requires more than II minutes
42la seconds to read seems to repel q
vast number of people. Relatively few
people have developed the art of read
ing and listening to the radio at the
papers are concerned, reading and
listening to the wife's conversation has
been developed to the highest pro-
ficiency from end to end of the land.
Prices of books In this country have
something to do with the situation.
Costs OF production here are high for
books OF the usual type displayed in
bookstore windows. True, reprints are
to be had for as low as five cents, but not
until the books are old, printed from
plates used over and over again, or
until copyrights have expired. And
the American people do not care very
much for a book which has been of
the press more than few days. 1t no
longer is new book.
There are some quaint people In
the country who still read Dickens, and
Mark Twain is best seller. EyeI:
Shakespeare holds up pretty well, but
there is q shrewd suspicion on the
part of booksellers that the Shakespeare
trade springs largely from the custom
of giving school graduation presents,
birthday gifts and the like. Gift books
in this country are seldom looked III
the page, so to speak. But the bind
irgs must be good, and that runs up
the figures which, according TO the
latest census OF the book-puohshAns
industry. showed it to have reached
in 1927 the large figure Of s906,4eS,7S7'
Copies Increase. Titles Decrease.
In 1925 books published numbered
200 .ss7 .2As and in 1927 they had In
creased to 227,495, 5A4. Numbers OF
COPIES are on the increase, but num-
bers of titles are far below the peak
which came in 1910, practically two
decades ago. Then 1870 different
books were published, but in 1923 only
1885 titles we're offered.
And it seems that the magazines
have taken away the demand for hetioll
in book form, iE spite OF the TACT that
censors have given such great pepu-
Iarity to the modern novel. Perhars
this is because the publishers are liz
tentionally putting out fewer novels.
At any rate, the peak in fetion Was
reached away back in 1901, when sucn
best sellers as Mary Johnstons 10
Have and to Hold" were sweeping the
country with millioR-copy sales, Ms
ures not approached today by the most
popular. In 1901, 2,23A books OF nctlo':
were published, while last year only
! sO9 saw the light, although there mao
been a tremendous increase IN popI-
latiop. ..u - ,ou
estate. In 1910 the publishers put our
043 titles under that elasslncatlntl,
while last year paltry 4Sl such pooNe