The Era of Non-B

It may be a little late in the history of Western civilization to question the meaning of the word book, but the fact is that many publishers are paying their analysts with profits from the sale of goods that are not books at all. They are, in fact, non-books.

Like "fool," "phony" and "reactionary," the term is arbitrary, part of a category that everyone may populate to suit his own bias. But in general, a book is a contrivance of ink, paper and glue, whose purpose is to instruct, amuse, edify, exalt, infuriate or pander. It may be good or bad, but its author intended it to be good. and wrote it by putting word after word. The nonbook is usually not written at all but assembled with the help of scissors or tape recorder or some other mechanical device. The concern of the nonbook manufacturer is not that his product be good, merely that it be sold. The nonbook is merchandise aimed at the same non-people who are the most frequent targets of the film and TV industries. What they read is new, light, dry, smooth, well-filtered, quick, effortless and contains almost no calories.

Non-books come in several types, most of them easily recognizable:

P:Any collection of condensed novels, such as those issued by Reader's Digest, belonging in this class for the same reason that a beef bouillon cube is a non-cow.

P:All ghostwritten autobiographies and all collections of ghostwritten speeches. The ghost may be an ectoplasmic Boswell, but his ghosthood robs him of the independence necessary to prove it.

P:Books by Pete Martin and Gerold Frank. These autobiographers occupy a comfortable limbo between spook status and live authorship, and get prominent bylines for their as-told-to confessions of the tabloid famous. But preconfessed bunko is nevertheless bunko. And even expert spirit writing makes all autobiographies sound alike.

P:Most books thought up by publishers or moviemakers and farmed out to authors. Irving Wallace's The Chapman Report, old publishing hands insist, was hatched by Victor Weybright of the New American Library and reads like the hack job it is. Rona Jaffe's soap-slick The Best of Everything was written to the specifications of Film Producer Jerry Wald. It is possible to write a non-novel without any lightning from Olympus; Henry Morton Robinson accomplished it this year with Water of Life, a book he thought up all by himself as a cynical imitation of Taylor Caldwell. Author Jaffe, on the other hand, has taken a step forward; her new novel, Away from Home (Simon & Schuster; $4.50), is not non. It is merely bad.

P:Self-help and inspirational works. The inspiration trade, which produces some books that give genuine inspiration as well as some of the most enervating and profitable books known to publishing, purveys non-religion in endless series of similarly named volumes, all of them containing at least one poem by Joyce Kilmer. This curious subindustry reached its perihelion a couple of years ago with Presbyterian Minister Franklin Loehr's The Power of Prayer on Plants.

P:All cute picture and incongruous caption pamphlets of the sort whose vogue began with The Baby and The Frenchman. These look like books--they have pages and a little print--but they are really guest gifts and hospital offerings.

P:Most anthologies. The paste begins to taste.

All publishers commit non-books, but some do it more than others. One of the most persistent is Bernard Geis, who operates as a kind of non-publisher, distributing his wares through Bennett Cerf's Random House, and setting up shop to promote non-books, including those of backers Art Linkletter (The Secret World of Kids) and Groucho Marx (Groucho and Me). Says Geis: "I want to do anything that can be done to get the audience back to books." Then he adds, less piously: "I don't care what kind of book it is."

Less splashy but longer established are Mel Evans and George deKay, contractors who dream up nonbook ideas, hire authors and editors, and sell the product to publishing houses. The merchandise consists mostly of such night-table cannonballs as Fateful Moments, an anthology of traumata from Joan of Arc to Helen Keller, and the Great Treasury of American Writing, warmed-over heart warmers compiled by Louis Untermeyer.

Vice President Kenneth Giniger of Prentice-Hall's Hawthorn Books found one of his more successful package series in a succession of picture books showing Bishop Fulton J. Sheen acting out the Mass, touring Rome, and so forth. "It's like doing a movie, and I'm the producer," says Giniger happily, and he is obviously his own best pressagent. He discourages authors and agents. The firm invents most of its subjects, then cuts its risk with businesslike efficiency: it sends out form letters asking prospective customers if they would like to inspect a new book for a 30-day, money-back trial. If enough patrons of literature bite. Giniger commissions a ghost (often British, for lower fee and better prose) to write the book. If not, the idea is killed, polite regrets are issued to the folks.

A partial list of recent non-books:

Zsa Zsa Gabor: My Story Written for Me by Gerold Frank (World; $3.95). From Hungary to satiety, via Conrad Hilton, George Sanders and Porfirio Rubirosa. If this sentence were not the book's last, it would be fair warning: "Who knows, in this life of ours, what is really true and what is enchanting make-believe?"

Ustinov's Diplomats (Geis; $1.50). Can be read while running a four-minute mile; funny big pictures, mildly funny little text in which Ustinov, in his better moments the most amusing beard since G.B.S., imitates U.N. types. Typical Geis touch: Cineman Kirk Douglas adds an introduction in which he reminds everyone that Ustinov appears with him in the forthcoming movie Spartacus.

The Conformists, by Jack Wohl (P. S. Books; $1). Almost no text, pictures or humor: the gimmick is that colored balls, squares and triangles say things to each other. Orange ball to orange lump: "Tell me, Harriet, did you ever think of wearing a girdle?"

The Secrets of Long Life, by Dr. George Gallup and Evan Hill (Geis; $2.95). Longevity statistics that a newspaper could summarize in half a column, padded to book length by some extraordinarily foolish anecdotes and a questionnaire in which the reader can test his chances of living long enough to see publishing get even worse.

The Healing Power of Poetry, by Dr. Smiley Blanton (Crowell; $3.95). The author, perhaps the only positive-thinking psychiatrist in the country, is the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale's trusted associate. Says Dr. Peale: "Actually, this book is but another means by which this kindly doctor loves people into improved health."

The Prostitute in Literature, edited by Harold Greenwald and Aaron Kirch (Ballantine; 50-c-). A paste-up of teasers about such shady ladies as Thais and Fanny Hill, which ends, to the sure stupefaction of all prurient teenagers, with the nighttown episode from Ulysses.

1,000 Inspirational Things, compiled by Audrey Stone Morris (Hawthorn; $4.95). This, the Hawthorn brochure announces reverently, is a companion column to 1,000 Beautiful Things and 1,000 American Things.

That Certain Something, by Arlene Francis (Messner; $3). Blather about how to be absolutely fascinating, including a chapter called "Charm Begins at Home--and Keeps on Going," another called "Twenty Short Cuts to Charm" (non-authors like to number their nonsense), and a questionnaire called a Charmometer, which asks such questions as "Do you plan one small thing each day to make your life more pleasant?"

Once Upon a Dream, a Personal Chat with all Teenagers (Bobbs-Merrill; $2-95), by Patti Page. Blather on how to be absolutely fascinating, although young. Singer Page's chapter on early marriage begins, "Please, Dear Hearts and Gentle People, not yet--not till you think it over. Do you know the statistics on adolescent marriages?'' There is no advice on how old one should be before attempting a book.

Selections from the Speeches (1900-1959) of Murray Seasongood (Knopf; $4.50), compiled and with a foreword by Agnes Seasongood. Orator Seasongood was mayor of Cincinnati from 1926 to 1930 and seems to have been a fairly fluent afterdinner speaker, but this cannot explain why the doughty firm of Knopf decided to set down his thoughts in Electra type, designed by W. A. Dwiggins.

There's Good News Tonight (Doubleday; $3.95) by Gabriel Heatter. The noted radio soothsayer, with some editorial assistance, provides an unnecessary autobiography, which follows the standard matrix for a show-business memoir: Rags. Youthful Striving, Nervous Breakdown. Riches, Philosophy. The last is summed up thus: "Each, in his way, packs his bag and goes on. It's a golden journey, strewn with rocks and jewels. Who would have it any other way?"

The Question Man (Geis; $1.50), by Steve Allen. Another picture book, with a gimmick that grows rather old by the last page: answer first, then incongruous question to fit. Sample: Answer--"Butterfield eight three thousand." Question--"How many hamburgers did Butterfield eat?" There follows a picture of Non-Author Allen looking queasy.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.