THE weather vane of popularity as it is fanned by the fresh currents of enthusiasm indicates very clearly that readers to-day are following a more serious bent than in the Years of Plenty. Witness the success of The Epic of America, now in its 135th thousand; witness the demand for books explaining the way in, the way out of Depression. When publishers thought they had satisfied (perhaps surfeited) this demand, along came the provocative articles on Technocracy in the New Outlook, exciting almost nation-wide curiosity. Those wishing books on Technocracy please hold up their right hand. . . . Very well, they will be here in a minute. . . . When the War Debts became table talk, someone electrified a dinner party by quoting from a book published in Washington. As a result of such word-of-mouth advertising. War Debts and World Prosperity, by Harold G. Moulton and Leo Pasvolsky, has been rushed through three printings. Walter Lippmann calls it 4indispensable.’ ... The greatest novelty of the season (Simon, Schuster, were you asleep?) is the Pop-Up Books for children. They were invented in Germany, copied over here, and sold 35,000 copies in record time. Jack the Giant Killer is my favorite. . . . Walter (‘Erie Canal’) Edmonds has sold the dramatic rights of his new spring novel. Erie Water, to Messrs. Jerome Kern and Hammerstein. Is this another Show Boat opera in the making? I hope so.
