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
Summary
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 th
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 397-410) and index
