The rapid increase in the number of books published in the United States, especially during the past decade, has been the subject of much comment. Statistics are collected regularly by the trade papers, and these figures give the number of books for each year in each of several well-defined classes. There are at the present time 24 classes: as…

This book draws on extensive demographic information to present a portrait of the nation's reading habits. Research offers the following observations and facts: reading of serious contemporary literature is the pastime of a distinct minority; the proportion of Americans who read serious literature is between 7 and 12% and contemporary fiction,…