A Feeling for Books : The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire

Janice Radway suggests that the varied collection of books recommended by the Book-of-the-Month Club over the years has been instrumental in formulating middlebrow literary taste in America and in defining the desires of the middle class. Here is her passionate exploration of reading, literary professionals, and the character of culture. 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. In The Service Of The General Reader. A Certain Book Club Culture ; A Business With A Mission ; The Intelligent Generalist And The Uses Of Reading. -- On The History Of The Middlebrow. The Struggle Over The Book, 1870-1920 ; A Modern Selling Machine For The Books: Harry Scherman And The Origins Of The Book-of-the-month Club ; Automated Book Distribution And The Negative Option: Agency And Choice In A Standardized World. ; The Scandal Of The Middlebrow: The Professional-managerial Class And The Exercise Of Authority In The Literary Field ; Reading For A New Class: The Judges, The Practical Logic Of Book Selection, And The Questions Of Middlebrow Style. -- Books For Professionals. A Library Of Books For The Aspiring Professional: Some Effects Of Middlebrow Reading. Janice A. Radway. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [397]-410) And Index. Deftly melding ethnography, cultural history, literary criticism, and autobiographical reflection, A Feeling for Books is at once an engaging study of the Book-of-the-Month Club's influential role as a cultural institution and a profoundly personal meditation about the experience of reading. Janice Radway traces the history of the famous mail-order book club from its controversial founding in 1926 through its evolution into an enterprise uniquely successful in blending commerce and culture. Framing her historical narrative with writing of a more personal sort, Radway reflects on the contemporary role of the Book-of-the-Month Club in American cultural history and in her own life. Her detailed account of the standards and practices employed by the club's in-house editors is also an absorbing story of her interactions with those editors. Examining her experiences as a fourteen-year-old reader of the club's selections and, later, as a professor of literature, she offers a series of rigorously analytical yet deeply personal readings of such beloved novels as Marjorie Morningstar and To Kill a Mockingbird. Rich and rewarding, this book will captivate and delight anyone who is interested in the history of books and in the personal and transformative experience of reading.