The Bookshelf

The Rinchart Publishing Company has lately brought out on the market a new series of paperbound books which, with the gradually disappearing GI subsidy, is going to mean considerable saving to the undergraduate in the Humanities. Modern Library, which was such a good thing when it first came out, has not only been steadily increasing its prices but lately taken to putting flashy dust-jackets on its issues in an apparent attempt to cover up the deteriorating quality of its insides. The catalogue of Modern Library is still without equal, but Rinchart's thick paper at least allows the student to read only one page at a time, a fine old custom that Modern Library readers long ago gave up when they once mastered the technique of reading page 2 through page 1.

The Rinchard series retails for 49 cents in the Square, with its one "giant" ("Moby Dick") costing 75 cents. The quality of the paper seems amazingly good, both the type and margins are accommodating to the eye, and since the books are bound in soft paper, the reader is given a sense of intimacy and control which is hardly possible with a stiff-backed and weighty tome.

Actually, the new format is nearly the same one used in Europe for all books (other than collections), whether the book be a classic, a reprint, or a bestseller. The economics of the book business in America are pretty incomprehensible. (No matter how many copies of a best-seller are sold, the publisher usually announces that he only breaks clear because of the sale of movie rights.) Why couldn't something similar to the Rinchart paper editions be used for all new books? There are damn few books coming out each day of which the prospective purchaser is confident he wants a permanent copy. Sales resistance should decrease when not only the price is more reasonable but the buyer doesn't feel he's making a permanent commitment to his bookshelf. Rinchart! Rinchart!