Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART I. IN THE SERVICE OF THE GENERAL READER

Chapter 1. A Certain Book Club Culture

Chapter 2. A Business with a Mission

Chapter 3. The Intelligent Generalist and the Uses of Reading

PART II. ON THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLEBROW

Chapter 4. The Struggle over the Book, 1870-1920

Chapter 5. A Modern Selling Machine for Books: Harry Scherman and the Origins of the Book-of-the-Month Club

Chapter 6. Automated Book Distribution and the Negative Option: Agency and Choice in a Standardized World

Chapter 7. The Scandal of the Middlebrow: The Professional-Managerial Class and the Exercise of Authority in the Literary Field

Chapter 8. Reading for a New Class: The Judges, the Practical Logic of Book Selection, and the Question of Middlebrow Style

PART III. BOOKS FOR PROFESSIONALS

Chapter 9. A Library of Books for the Aspiring Professional: Some Effects of Middlebrow Reading

Afterword

Notes

Sources Cited

Index