In the twentieth century, cumulative millions of readers received books by mail from clubs like the Book-of-the-Month Club, the Book Society or Bertelsmann Club. This Element offers an introduction to book clubs as a distribution channel and cultural phenomenon, and shows that book clubs and book commerce are linked inextricably.
The famous 1962 precedent at the Restrictive Practices Court of the United Kingdom, “Books are different,” is still the reasoning behind many cultural policies around the world, building on long-standing assumptions surrounding “the book.”