There is a complex relationship between the authority of (printed) texts and their contents. While this is a worthwhile and indeed underrepresented research topic, this contribution will explore a... Show moreThere is a complex relationship between the authority of (printed) texts and their contents. While this is a worthwhile and indeed underrepresented research topic, this contribution will explore a different angle. For Megan Benton, the book is “a cultural emblem, [...] its particular content [...] often regarded merely as one ingredient in the larger iconographic package”. She continues, “one owns books for many reasons beyond a desire to read them” (271). Among other definitions, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary indicates that authority is the “power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior” or a “convincing force” (83). What kinds of authority (and other characteristics) do we attribute to those who surround themselves with books and filled bookshelves? How do filled bookshelves “command thought, opinion, or behavior”? What role does the book as a cultural object play in establishing and perpetuating positions of (intellectual?) authority? The term “furniture books” denotes books on display for representative purposes. Book sales clubs like the American Book-of-the-Month Club (BOMC) were a prime opportunity for consumers to buy “fine book sets” in affordable but attractive bindings “not simply because they wanted to read them but also because they wished to display them as prized possessions” (BOMC founder Harry Scherman, qtd. in Radway, 160). This short paper will reflect upon the authority of books as objects on display during the second half of the twentieth century. In regards to the current changes in book and reading culture, the paper will explore new forms of authority. Traditional furniture books have lost their wide appeal. However, thick and heavy tomes still demand our attention. Even today – in an age of bare shelves due to the popularity of digital reading – literary critics often make a connection between the materiality of a book and its implicit importance. (Works cited: Benton, Megan: “Too Many Books”: Book Ownership and Cultural Identity in the 1920s. In: American Quarterly 49.2 (June 1997), 268–297. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Eleventh edition. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 2011. Radway, Janice: A feeling for books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, literary taste, and middle-class desire. Chapel Hill, NC: The Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1997.) Show less