In the first half of the twentieth century, the bookshop in the cultivated an image of an elite establishment that served an affluent, highly educated group of patrons. Frequently expressing disapproval of drugstores and other non-book retailers whose stock in books was heavily weighted toward the most commercial fare, so-called regular booksellers proudly emphasized their role as promoters of refined literary tastes and judgments.

However, this conception of the bookseller as community taste leader has changed in recent decades. While contemporary book professionals continue to believe that they can provide some cutural leadership through their decisions about what books to stock, this coexists and conflicts with a philosophical and pragmatic commitment to giving people what they appear to want.

In this paper, I examine the tensions that result from the attempt of booksellers to both serve as conduits for the satisfaction of consumer desires, and act as cultural authorities who guide readers to writing and ideas considered uplifting, challenging, or in some other way good for them. I also suggest that the contemporary shift towards emphasizing the bookseller as servant of public taste actually produces a different, if more hidden form of cultural leadership.

My conclusions here are based on data I gathered from interviews conducted, primarily in New York and California, with forty-two members of the book industry (including booksellers,. wholesalers, and publishing house personnel) and thirty-seven bookstore customers. These interviews were supplemented by a reading of the trade literature on the book industry of the past several decades, and an examination of various legal and financial documents.

The tensions that I am pointing to here are, of course, premised on a perceived distinction between good books and mass market literature. (p. 1)