With motives almost as lofty as the potential profits, the Teen Age Book Club (sponsored by Marshall Field’s Pocket Books, Inc.) set out a year ago to wean youngsters away from the comics. As more suitable fare for growing minds, a committee of teachers and librarians picked a list of 50 books ranging from Shakespeare’s Tragedies to Damon Runyon Favorites. Last week the club celebrated its birthday by totting up first-year sales: the 90,000 members had bought nearly 600,000 books.
Top ten titles (seven of which have appeared on movie marquees): Lost Horizon, The Phantom Filly, Home Sweet Homicide, To Have and to Hold, Junior Miss, Random Harvest, Lad: a Dog, Wuthering Heights, Steele of the Royal Mounted, The Border Trumpet.
The weaning was accomplished, but the youngsters, it seemed, were not taking much solid food yet.
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