Books: Pop Fiction Lives

Books for the masses are published in huge numbers in the U.S.S.R., but they are not always the uplifting tracts that Marx and Lenin envisioned as the people's literature. New police and spy thrillers and science fiction are snapped up by fans on publication day. The country's top mystery writer is currently Julian Semyonov, 48, whose latest, Tass Is Authorized to State ..., was published in an edition numbering 100,000 copies. It is the stirring tale of intrepid KGB agents vs. the CIA in an unnamed African country—manifestly Angola.

Because publishers base the size...

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