the first. From the beginnings of the automobile, they have 
preferred the wraparound space of the small car. The pictorial 
value of “enclosed space” for book, car, or house has never 
appealed to them. The paperback, especially in its highbrow 
form, was tried in America in the 1920s and thirties and 
forties. It was not, however, until 1953 that it suddenly 
became acceptable. No publisher really knows why. Not only is 
the paperback a tactile, rather than a visual, package; it can be 
as readily concerned with profound matters as with froth. The 
American since TV has lost his inhibitions and his innocence 
about depth culture. The paperback reader has discovered that 
he can enjoy Aristotle or Confucius by simply slowing down. The 
old literate habit of racing ahead on uniform lines of print 
yielded suddenly to depth reading. Reading in depth is, of 
course, not proper to the printed word as such. Depth probing 
of words and language is a normal feature of oral and