In Defense Of Pocket Books

Mrs. Bosworth is a California housewife who also does secretarial and editorial work.

It was reported recently that the Yugosla^ys almost wept with joy when exposed to their first sample of supermarket shopping. The lux­ury of picking and choosing from many items touched them deeply. In the local market the other night, I wondered if the day would ever come when they could buy a loaf of bread on the one hand and a book on the other. We take for granted our markets, even more so, our books. With the advent of pocket books, we can have every­thing from new developments in space travel to murder or adven­ture novels; the world at our fin­gertips for less than $1.00.

There is an element that says, “I wouldn’t buy a pocket book.” Many hold that all paperbacks are as lurid as the front covers on most of them. In other cases, peo­ple feel a book belongs in a per­manent library and reprints don’t meet that need. No, they are made for reading while eating lunch, riding a bus or train, or waiting for a dental appointment. I buy them for another reason, too—they are wonderful for marking!

Something in my childhood training prevents me from mark­ing up the clothbound books in our home library. When I want to refer to a particular passage in one, I have to hunt for it. Not so with my pocket books, they are underlined in red and blue and marked with brackets. Listen:

“Private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private ex­travagance. And this is the ten­dency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third, and so on….”

That is Thomas Jefferson, writ­ing a letter in 1816. A book* of his collected letters cost me 35¢. It has 186 pages in all, but even if it had only the one letter, that was worth my investment.

When the news from Washing­ton stands my hair on end, or an­other Senator gets an idea of what we should and shouldn’t make the functions of our government, I can sit down with Jefferson, and Madison, and Hamilton, and think about it—and it didn’t cost as much as a single night out to din­ner at a half-way decent restau­rant.

*Thomas Jefferson on Democracy, edited by Saul K. Padover.