A feeling for books
Subtitle: the Book-of-the-Month Club, literary taste, and middle-class desire
By: Janice A. Radway.
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Chapel Hill
Language: eng
Number of pages: 424
Subjects: Book-of-the-Month Club -- History.; Books and reading -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Books and reading -- United States -- History -- 20th century.; Popular culture -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Popular culture -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
Description: A Feeling for Books is at once a fascinating study of an influential cultural institution and a profoundly personal meditation on the love of books and the experience of reading. Deftly melding cultural history, literary criticism, and autobiographical reflection, Janice Radway traces the history of the Book-of-the-Month Club from its controversial founding in 1926 through its evolution into an organization uniquely successful in blending commerce and culture.

Working, as an ethnographer would, from interviews with club employees and with records left by the club's founders and original judges, Radway reconstructs the standards and ethos as well as the tastes and passions that drove club officials. In the process, she provides an insightful look at the attractions of middlebrow culture and an intriguing account of middle-class Americans' desire to display the tasteful signs of learning and education.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [397]-410) and index.