Precursors of today’s Reading Communities?
Johannes Frimmel (Munich)
In the aftermath of World War II, the concept of book clubs was flourishing in Germany. As the infrastructure of the book trade was largely destroyed, many small book clubs filled the gap by distributing catalogues and shipping the books to their members. The book clubs also attracted successfully the rural population and the lower classes. Soon two publishing houses achieved supremacy by taking over smaller firms and homogenizing their product range: Holtzbrinck and most of all Bertelsmann, whose book club counted already one million members in 1954. Both enterprises owed their rise also to their excellent relationship to the National Socialist regime. Bertelsmann`s basic principle was that the book club members ordered books with regularity and paid for them 10 to 20 percent less than in book shops. Because the books were sold as licensed editions, they were not subject to book price fixing. In my paper I want to analyze the history and business model of post-war book clubs . Likewise, I want to present their best-sellers and ask which role the book clubs played in forming the literary taste. Finally the paper will discuss the question whether book clubs can be compared with today’s reading communities and examine the basic differences.
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