Stores Report Feminist Books Popular

Feminist titles and female authors constitute a large part of college students' recreational reading, booksellers in the Square said last week.

Four stores, the Coop, Harvard Book Store, Paperback Booksmith, and Words Worth, cited "The Women's Room" by Marilyn French, a novel whose story begins in a Sever Hall restroom and goes on to study women of this generation, as a heavy seller.

"If we knew why these books were doing so well, we'd buy more like them," Richard G. Himnan, paperback buyer for the Coop, said last week.

"Men's fiction does not seem to be selling," he added. "Women authors really seem to be dominant right now."

He said mystery-adventure stories are perennial favorites, with books by P.D. James, Robert Ludlu and Larry Niven most in demand now.

Both the Coop and the Harvard Book Store placed "My Mother, Myself," a book by Nancy Friday, as one of their most popular selections.

The novel is the autobiographical story of the author's changing relationship with her mother through the years.

No Tolkien

Charles E. Ridewood, manager of Paperback Booksmith, last week named "The Women's Room" and "Ourselves and Our Children" by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, as that store's hot items. "Ourselves and Our Children" discusses family structure and the process of raising children.

Ridewood said that he sees no strong trend in college reading.

"I don't see another Tolkien on the horizon, but we do well with feminist titles overall," he said.

Sales go down at the beginning of the year when students go back to school, but they pick up around Thanksgiving vacation, he said, adding, "People don't seem to read very much of the kind of thing we sell in September and October."

Other books by women authors such as "Mommie Dearest," stories of actress Joan Crawford by her daughter Christina Crawford, and "Moments of Being," unpublished autobiographical writings by Virginia Woolfe, seem to be popular with college-age readers, Peter Barkley, a short-order buyer at Words Worth, said last week.

"High-Tech" by Joan Kron and Suzanne Slesin has sold "surprisingly" well, he added.

"High-Tech" describes an interior decorating trend toward nuts and bolts and other industrial effects.

Barkley also mentioned Herman Wouk's World War II novel "War and Remembrance" as a current success.

November's "Campus Paperback Bestsellers," compiled by The Chronicle of Higher Education from information supplied by college stores throughout the country, lists "The Thorn Birds," the story of an Australian family by Colleen McCullough, "My Mother, Myself," and "The Women's Room" as top sellers.

Students frequently check out novels on the Vietnam war, such as "Going After Cacciato" by Tim O'Brien and books by women authors such as "On Photography" by Susan Sontag, Jane R. Morhardt, assistant librarian at Lamont Library, said last week.

"It surprises me that sometimes the heaviest items go out just as often as what seems to be lighter reading," she said.

Despite the apparent trend, some professors doubt that many student have time for recreational reading.

"I didn't have the sense when I talked to students, that people are reading modern American authors," Peter A. Dale, assistant professor of English Literature, said last week.

"They're too busy reading sociology," he added