READER HABITS IN THE1940s

Book sales shot up during the war despite paper shortages and in 1946 the publishing industry was eager to figure out if this was a trend that would continue in the postwar era. On April 20, Publishers' Weekly devoted a major feature article to a survey of American book reading habits recently released by the Book Manufacturers Institute.

The last major survey, the Cheney Survey, had been undertaken 15 years earlier. There had been a number of significant changes since then. One was the growth of the book clubs, particularly the Book- of-the-Month Club and the Literary Guild. Another was the growth in lower-priced reprints and the rapid expansion of paperbacks into "every variety of newsstand and chain stores."

Polling had become more sophisticated and widespread in recent years. For this one, 235 interviewers surveyed 4,000 individuals, chosen to be a demographic cross-section, between May 21 and June 8, 1945, when the reading phenomenon was at its height.

Some key findings:

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