Helene --
A follow up to your note.
In addition to the quantity of bible material available primarily
through religious stores (and websites) there are also lots of
presses that publish only christian -- and specifically Evangelical
-- books. A notable example is that many people had never heard of
the publisher (I forget who it is) of the Born Again series till
sales hit the multi-millions. But in fact they have been around for
quite a while. Also, look at the popularity of the various preachers'
books -- Joel Osteen, etc. Many of them are primarily sold either
online or through the churches that agree with the author's point of view.
I'm also aware that there's a large underground world of Christian
CD's and music. It too isn't always noticeable to the general public,
especially in the metropolitan areas. But it sells in very large numbers.
Therefore, it's not entirely surprising that we don't show up as
enormous book buyers when all of these trends are taken into
account. On the othner hand, we do probably purchase (and borrow
from libraries) a large percentage of the Trade books on a number of
topics. I'd suspect as well that our interests are wider than the
bulk of the country.
Fred Isaac
Temple Sinai
Oakland, CA
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