In the world of theatre and concert economics, the inelegant but expressive term, ‘bums on seats’ seems to be here to stay.

The books we buy or borrow (for borrowing patterns affect library sales) are the equivalent of theatre tickets. Books which keep an optimum number of bums on desk or living room chairs are just as good news to publishers and booksellers as prosperous box office returns to entrepreneurs. Most books take at least twice as long to read as a performance does to sit through so it is not inappropriate that they usually cost more. The writing, production, and intelligent selling of books is highly ‘labour intensive’. Books remain the cheapest form of entertainment, inspiration and instruction if one takes into account the permanence of printed paper and its portability, and allows for the numbers of people who often read one copy of a work, even from private shelves. Unlike cassettes, print’s chief competitor, the enjoyment of printed books requires no more equipment than the human eye.