Recommended Reading: Book List Books and Middlebrow Tastemaking

Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 5-7-2021 Recommended Reading: Book List Books and Middlebrow Tastemaking Cheryl Read Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Part of the American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Read, C. (2021). Recommended Reading: Book List Books and Middlebrow Tastemaking (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1993 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. RECOMMENDED READING: BOOK LIST BOOKS AND MIDDLEBROW TASTEMAKING A Dissertation Submitted to the McAnulty Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Cheryl A. Read May 2021 Copyright by Cheryl A. Read 2021 RECOMMENDED READING: BOOK LIST BOOKS AND MIDDLEBROW TASTEMAKING By Cheryl A. Read Approved February 8, 2021 ________________________________ ________________________________ Greg Barnhisel, Ph.D. Judy Suh, Ph.D. Professor of English Associate Professor of English (Committee Chair) (Committee Member) ________________________________ Faith Barrett, Ph.D. Associate Professor of English (Committee Member) ________________________________ ________________________________ Kristine Blair, Ph.D. Danielle A. St. Hilaire, Ph.D. Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate Chair, Department of English School of Liberal Arts Associate Professor of English Professor of English iii ABSTRACT RECOMMENDED READING: BOOK LIST BOOKS AND MIDDLEBROW TASTEMAKING By Cheryl A. Read May 2021 Dissertation supervised by Dr. Greg Barnhisel The term “middlebrow” has historically been hurled as a pejorative to signify cultural objects and consumers of them which are watered down, inauthentic, and invested in quick social gain. I argue that the literary middlebrow can be better understood if its definition expands to include a mode of reading characterized by being mediated by cultural arbiters and purposeful in that literature functions as an instrument for self-improvement. In this dissertation, I use book list books, lists of recommended reading published as standalone books themselves, to trace the history of a middlebrow mode of reading from the late nineteenth century to the present. While the mediation of and purposes for middlebrow reading have been shaped by the educational trends and historical concerns of each generation, the purposeful and mediated nature of the middlebrow mode of reading has endured. iv DEDICATION For Steven and Everett. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Doctoral programs aren’t typically built for working parents, and I wouldn’t have made it through this one without an incredible support system. My gratitude goes out to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts and the English Department for providing me with the funding that allowed me to conduct research and write. Many librarians at the Gumberg Library, Wilson Library, and Minnesota Library Information Network made this project possible when I lived across the country from campus, and the staff at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center made my first archival research trip a fantastic experience. The careful attention of my committee members, Drs. Greg Barnhisel, Judy Suh, and Faith Barrett led me down avenues I never would have imagined. I also appreciated Dr. Joan Shelley Rubin’s feedback on early iterations of the project. I drew strength from my Walden community, my therapists, and those who have been writing alongside me, especially David Young, Josie Rush, Jade Higa, and Jo Sullivan. My dear friends and family have cheered me on since the beginning, even when they didn’t know what exactly they were cheering for. Above all, I would like to thank my parents, who made sure I had glasses and library books when I was a bookish girl and childcare and a place to stay when I was a stressed dissertation writer. Finally, to my husband, Steven, and my son, Everett, who have sacrificed so much for this dream alongside me. I can’t wait to see what our next adventure will be. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ....................................................................................................................................iv Dedication ................................................................................................................................. v Acknowledgement ...................................................................................................................vi Introduction ........................................................................................................................... viii Chapter 1: “A light book about heavy reading”: Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book and the Great Books Idea ............................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Clifton Fadiman’s Lifetime Reading Plan and the Changing Canon ............... 56 Chapter 3: The Healing Power of Twenty-First-Century Middlebrow Reading ..............100 Bibliography .........................................................................................................................153 vii Introduction Many, I believe, are deterred from attempting what are called stiff books for fear they should not understand them; but there are few who need complain of the narrowness of their minds, if only they would do their best with them. —Sir John Lubbock, “The Hundred Best Books” Take a trip to the mall, and step inside its big-box bookstore, the one that shuttered independent booksellers across America at the turn of the twenty-first century and is now itself threatened by online retailers. Walk past the espresso bar, the readerly gifts, the children’s train table, and the rows of glossy magazines. Although most of the few bookshelves that remain are now devoted to young adult novels, beach reads, bestsellers, and self-improvement, one or two of them hold a modern curiosity. Here, near the fiction backlist, you will find lists of recommended reading, published as hardcover and trade paperback books themselves. One of these, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, is especially likely to command attention, perhaps because of its bold type, or perhaps because of its heft from nearly one thousand pages printed in full color. Although some of these book list books have been in print for decades, more are published each year. The alarm is constantly being sounded for the death of publishing, the death of books, and the death of reading, so why are time and resources continuing to be devoted to the production of book list books when similar content is readily available online? It has long been impossible to read everything worth reading within a single lifetime, so for the past century and half, readers have turned to book list books like these to help shape their own reading. In this dissertation, I examine the humble book list book, which influences the reading of countless readers outside of the classroom, from the late viii nineteenth century to the present, considering what this niche genre may reveal about middlebrow reading practices. Defining the Literary Middlebrow In 1925, British humor and satire magazine Punch declared, “the B.B.C. claim to have discovered a new type, the ‘middlebrow’. It consists of people who are hoping that some day they will get used to the stuff they ought to like.” 1 This early definition focuses on the middlebrow person as distastefully aspirational. Rather than engaging with culture for its own sake, Punch suggests that middlebrows spend their time on cultural objects that will benefit them socially. Subsequent descriptions of the middlebrow are likewise derogatory. In a 1932 letter that was only published posthumously, Virginia Woolf famously describes the middlebrow as “betwixt and between,” mixing the pursuit of art and life with capitalism and disrespecting the boundaries between highbrow and lowbrow.2 Woolf considers the highbrow and lowbrow to be “authentic,” with easily recognizable motivations in their production and consumption of art, whereas the middlebrow’s cultural diet is influenced by an interest in social advancement. Woolf’s middlebrow is parasitic, snatching elements from both highbrow and lowbrow in order to fabricate something completely lacking authenticity. Taking up the term “midcult” to describe this phenomenon in 1962, Dwight Macdonald expresses a similar concern for the deception he sees as inherent in middlebrow culture, which he believes “pretends to respect the standards of High Culture while in fact it waters them down and vulgarizes 1. Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. “middlebrow,” accessed February 20, 2016, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/252048?redirectedFrom=middlebrow. 2. Virginia Woolf, “Middlebrow,” in The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1942), 180. For a discussion of Woolf’s relationship with intellectualism and the common reader, see Melba Cuddy-Keane, Virginia Woolf, the Intellectual, and the Public Sphere (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). ix them.”3 From both Woolf’s perspective in the United Kingdom and Macdonald’s perspective in the United States, the middlebrow is dangerous because it is comprised of an inferior cultural product disguised as highbrow. As these

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