14 ‘It’s Cooking Fine’ Union Bookstore By ELIZABETH HAWES A publisher interested in new outlets for books will be interested m the United Automobile Workers’ Bookshop in Detroit. It opened in January this year and it’s cooking “fine, as we’d say in the union hail. The shop, located on one of Detroit's main drags but not in the center of town, is big. Fifty people can browse around in it without getting in one another’s way. It has plain, clean, White walls lined with rows of brown shelves (the kind you Can reach without a stepladder). The Shelves, a few tables, and the bookcases built around the columns that run down the center of the room are all covered with books. That's really all there is in the place—a cash register and books that are easy to get at, easy to look over under the fine overhead lighting. Tucked away in one Corner at the back are two soundproof booths where the customers can listen to records. The shop has grossed $7,500 in the first two months, It’s open Six days a week from 9 am. to 9.30 p.m. Most of the sales are made after six o’clock Anyone can buy, but the main customers are WAW members who own the non-profit making enterprise and* set rehates on Some of the books they buy. Before the shop was stocked, questionnaires were sent to UAW educational directors in various locals requesting infor- mation on the reading habits of the union members as evi- deneed by books frequently taken out in local union libraries. Response to the questionnaire indicated a Widespread interest in eyery type of book—and so the UAW Bookshop is very. completely stocked. There is, of course, a very wide selection of books on labor history and economics. But this type of stock is no greater than that of current bestsellers, fiction and non-fiction, of books On art and music and literature, of children’s books—of any kind of book you ever heard about. : The main Kick of union members is about the price of books: They never realized how much books cost and they’d like to know why prices are so high. But they buy. addition to the local Detroit trade, orders are beginning locals of the UAW spread The locals recently received their first catalogue from the Detroit shop. Those that had libraries the classics they need. Such orders are usually for between $300 and 3500 worth up to 50 copies of a cur- rent book and disposed of them by Carrying them right into the plants and selling them directly to the workers on the job: The enormous Possibilities of book~sales by this means are obvious. : : = The UAW Bookshop was set up by and is under the direc- tion of William #4. Levitt, international education director of the union. He’s 30 years old, a blond, lazy-eyed, active-minded ~ Southerner, who, after working in industrial shops* off and on for four years, emerged from the University of North Carolina with an MA in 1938. He worked in the University Research Institute of Social Sciences, was state of setting up a NAW book club. With a ready-made, potential club membership Tist of a million union members and the Possibilities of direct to the membership shop, it would be non-profit making, Levitt figures he may very possibly be able to Stop union members from Kicking about the price of at least @ Widely known as the author of Why Women Cry and Fashion Is Spinach, Elizabeth Hawes is now doimg special work with the international education depart- ment of the United Auto Workers (CIO). This article first appeared in Publishers? Weekly. — May Day Greetings to Our Armed Forces and to Canada’s War Workers with recognition of Their Unity for Victory and Postwar Security Ledge 756, |.A.of M. Vancouver, B.C. Y) (7 Even on moving day the customers were on band! (left) and his assistant Nellie McKean had their shelves the first rush of business began. In the fore on the center table, is Jobn McPeake, chair Books for the Peopl 2 By CYNTHIA CARTER LE customers who ters at 420 West Quenters in the city. patronize the People’s Bookstor Pender Street, have the highest A broad statement? Maybe. But ‘based on fact. Because the customers who come in to buy books fr of the Month Club type of r With the Wind, Book they know that on his shelves are the finest boo the Canadian political scene, and a host of other subjects which the average bookseller shoves on his back shelves or doesn’t carry at all. What's more, they know that from Bill Bennett they can get accurate advice on ‘which books to buy. Therefore, it is not odd that at_a time when the national best seller was the Readers Digest hoax Out of the Night, custom- ers of The People’s Bookstore were reading reliable, informa- tive works such as Palme Dutt’s India Today, and The Face of the Enemy, an expose of fascist forces in Canada by Sam Carr. When, according to national polls, the public mind could con- centrate on nothing heavier than William Saroyan’s sacharrine. sweet The Human Comedy, Bill Bennett's customers were con- cerning themselves with the Serious subjects of Earl Browd- er’s Production for Victory and Stanley Ryerson’s French Canada. Bill Bennett likes to talk about the merchandise on his shelves, and takes a great interest in trends shown by his sales figures and order forms. “Most readers prefer ‘basic WOrKS On basic problems.” he declares. “The all-time best sel- ter; ef course, is the Communist Manifesto. The works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, in the inexpensive Paper-covered edi- tions, are steady favorites. At the present time, with the great Possibilities opened by the de- velopment of the Canadian north, the general best seller is Hal Griffin’s Alaska and the Canad- ' time ian Northwest. This ‘interest in the north extends to the prob- lems of Canadian-Soviet e€ooper- ation in the postwar world, and books on the USSR, particularly those dealing with orth, are popular.” He will tell you about his new bookstore, too. Now that the store has been moved down to street level, with a large show Window in the front, a main room big enough to display the wide stock and still leave customers elbow-room, an office at the back, and upstairs, a stock room where supplies will be Kept, he expects the business to srow Steadily as it has grown in the past few months. e@ PDECELE often tell Bill Ben- nett they are too busy to read. “There are too many people now who say they haven’t enough to read,” he “Housewives Say they work too hard at home. Trade unionists Say they are busy with too many meetings, students tell them- Selves their ordinary studies are sufficient. The truth jis that if anybody is too busy to read he is too busy to do a 00d job at Whatever he attempts.” Among steadiest customers at the store is an elderly woman who on each visit buys 10 copies of the Constitution of the Soviet Union. “Pm always getting into argu- ments,” she smiles, “and 1 like to have some evidence to back me up.” A logger from the Queen Charlotte Islands, on his few trips to Vancouver, stocks up the Soviet - large mail order business, ] believes. Almost before Bill Bem stock arranged on the spac sround, looking over pbamph man of 5000 Homes Now Commit ca ‘4 | e, which has just moved to new I.Q. of any group of bookstori om Bill Bennett aren’t the eaders. Instead, they come to Bill be ks on economics, philosophy, world pe: with literature for the fr ‘the boys in the bunkhous Mdian from the Interior — in for a bundle of pam every so oiten. Two high girls come in every other | after school and browse a, always taking something them. A Chinese shipyard y reads everything he can I: hands on about his native - A railroad porter, running Vancouver to Toronto, dro between trips to Pick up < Pamphlet; he’s Spending the; hours on the Cross-countr reading the works of Mar Engels. Besidés serving hundrec people who come into the the People’s Bookstore de ing materials for men in lo Camps, in canneries along Coast, on fishing boats in Coastal waters “goes - out every mail. And with the + ing of new trade union Jipr) the bookstore has a new important job to do SUPP: organized labor with the tyr} literature so vital to its tence, yet unavailable elsew That is why the People’s E store is important to the eressive minded people of province — because it offe steady supply of reading mi ial not_te be found in ¢ stores, material of vital im] ance to the thinking man woman today. And becaust: fills this need Bill Bennet: convinced it will have the # ing support of all those Want to obtain the best litera: at the lowest price. ES