Search results for "Middlebrow"

Two Peas in a Pod: Book Sales Clubs and Book Ownership in the Twentieth Century

2017

In the early twentieth century, book sales clubs became popular as an alternative means of book distribution. Corinna Norrick-Ruhl offers a unique comparative approach, synthesizing research about book sales clubs in twentieth-century Germany and the USA. Whereas previous studies have focussed mainly on the recommended literature and the effect on middlebrow reading, Norrick-Ruhl shows how book sales clubs rendered the book as a cultural object available and affordable, filling working-class and middle-class shelves with attractive volumes of “furniture books”. While book sales clubs were enormously successful in the twentieth century, they have recently declined. The author finally underli…