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in the business. When you're confronted with all those ads in a single issue of The New York Times Book Review, you don't look at half of them. You look at the ones that interest you.

Do you think that the discount stores like Alexander's or Korvette's are hurting the small bookstore and do you think that it's going to change the way of selling books?

Of course they are. So many things have hurt the small bookstore that retail book selling is one of the least profitable enterprises in the United States. I think that it rates in the last five in the statistics. First of all, the book clubs, whether you like it or not, have cut a hole into retail book selling. They have helped in a way because it's their choices that have become the best-sellers and their advertising makes them best-sellers. The discount stores have hurt most with the recognized best-sellers. Discount stores don't carry a complete stock, but they do carry the best-sellers. In New York, you've got Korvette's right across the street from Brentano's on Fifth Avenue.

And right down the street from Scribner's.

What's happened of course is that Scribner's and Brentano's don't sell as many copies of the top best-sellers as they used to because people go into Korvette's and get