Goodbye Columbus, Hello Isolation

Goodbye to the "Strawberry Statement" and hello to "Mother Goose" characterizes the current feeling from booksellers in the Boston area. The book merchants have recently noticed a trend in student booksales away from leftist politics and social concerns toward less specialized interests, including cartoons and fiction.

Although both impressions and sales figures differ among sellers, many feel that the cults current in the '60s have disappeared. "I would say that there has been a wide broadening of interests over the last five years," Robert Hale, general manager for the Hathaway House Bookshop in Wellesley, says, "Students are no longer locked into a sort of pathetic search for identity and freedom," he says. "They are much freer now."

Richard Crowley, a bookseller in the Paperback Booksmith shop on Brattle Street, says that the store continues to sell "a lot of intellectual stuff, but the interest in political philosophy of a few years ago has disappeared."

According to Crowley, the latest mover at the Paperback Booksmith, aside from "Humboldt's Gift" by Nobel laureate Saul Bellow, has been a book titled the "Cat Catalogue" by Judy Fireman. "I guess it is about everything you always wanted to know about cats," Crowley says. "I don't know why it's so popular. I haven't read it, but I suppose you'd have to say people like cats. We can't keep enough of the books on the table."

"An Irreverent and Thoroughly Encompassing History of Almost Everything," by Robert Muir, has become the best selling book at Hale's store in Wellesley. "If you don't know anything about literature, you won't understand it," he says, adding, "It is such a good book."

Depending on the bookstore, and its location, a wide variety of bestselling books arises among students.

Two novels, however, "One Hundred Years of Solitude," by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," by Robert Pirsig, both published two years ago, appear to have stood the test of time.

Robert Hinman, a paperbook buyer for the Harvard Coop, says students have asked for these books persistently since they came out. They are well respected and widely talked about, he noted.

Some of the books currently appearing on most-in-demand lists are "Curtain," by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot's last cast), "Roots," by Alex Haley, a black historic document, and "Life after Life," by Raymond Moody Jr., M.D., a book that contains case histories of people whom doctors have declared clinically dead but who lived and recovered.

Booksellers at the Harvard Bookstore and the Coop say that "The Hite Report" has been a prime seller among Cambridge area students, although sales have declined for no apparent reason in the past week.

Alan Hewet, a bookseller at Harvard Bookstore on Mass Ave says that the store has shown a marked increase over the last year in the sale of sex books, like "Woman's Orgasm," by Georgia Kline-Graber and Benjamin Graber. The cover describes the book as "an amazingly easy and successful self-help program developed by a doctor-nurse sex-therapist team."

The Paperback Booksmith receives a fair amount of trade in feminist literature, Crowley says. Many feminists shop there, he says.

Students from Boston University are apparently buying more science fiction books, Bill Simpson, who has worked at the BU store for six years, says. He says he believes this is because "students are studying more these days and science fiction is a way for them to escape from their humdrum lives."

Simpson says there has been about a 30 per cent increase in science fiction sales over the last year.

"If there are any trends in what students are reading these days, I would describe them as leaning towards entertainment reading," Hinman says.

Hinman, who has worked at the Coop for some seven years, added that a fairly well accepted theory among booksellers has it that there have been no definitive trends over the past five years. This lack of direction represents a drastic change from past decades, when students appeared to only be interested in the same cults and social issues.

Hale says students who shop at the Hathaway shop have spent increasing amounts of time upstairs in the children's book department.

"They spend hours up there, which might not be such an unusual thing among college women, but males?..." Hales queries. He sees real value in children's literature, and cites the good humor and illustrations which can be found in such books.

"Granfa Grig," and "Mother Goose Rhymes Without Reason" is one of the most popular children's books he sells. "I don't think children would even understand what this book is about," Hale says, "because it mentions people that only adults know about."

Cartoon books, such as "Cat" and "Never Eat Anything Bigger than Your Head," both by Kliban, are selling madly at the Harvard Bookstore. Full of pictures and "very funny humor," according to Hewet, these books appeal to students who are looking for gifts and light reading. They are also "hilarious," Hewet adds.

The Harvard Bookstore has, apparently, never sold many books on leftist politics or social issues because, Hewet asserts, "the people interested in that kind of stuff usually steal their books."

"Rich Man Poor Man" has been a big seller at the Hathaway store recently, along with "Sybil,"--a work that has experienced a marked increase in popularity since a TV series by the same name began this fall. Hale says he does not understand why students are buying these books, explaining "these are suburban house wife books and I am very surprised that students are buying them."