Newspapers: A Hunger for Books

Publishing the Los Angeles Times is beginning to seem like a part-time operation for Norman Chandler’s Los Angeles Times-Mirror Co. Lately, Chandler has demonstrated an insatiable appetite for books. Three years ago, his company bought the New American Library of World Literature, one of the nation’s largest publishers of paperbacks (300 titles a year); last month it was Matthew Bender & Co., Inc., which publishes lawbooks and also owns two other publishing companies in related technical fields.

Now Chandler has announced that by year’s end the Times-Mirror Co. will acquire the World Publishing Co. of Cleveland, whose list of titles includes such perennial bestsellers as the Holy Bible, Webster’s New World Dictionary and the Skira Art Books.