DESPITE the growing sway of TV and hifi, despite a bounding passion for sports, despite increasing crime, flourishing liquor consumption, marriages, divorces and other distractions, the U.S. somehow manages to keep on readingor at least buyingmore books. If the number of books published and bought were the only criterion, 1954 was a big year. Publisher's Weekly, the industry's statistician, guessed that 1953's alltime high of 12,050 new titles would be equaled or surpassed by Dec. 31. It seemed likely that 1953's record sale of an estimated 600 million copies (3.7 new books per capita)...
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