MORE RELIGIOUS BOOKS SOLD

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29178, 12 April 1960, Page 14

MORE RELIGIOUS BOOKS SOLD

Crusade Promotes Some Interest

Religious books have sold better In Christchurch over the last year than they have for many years. leading booksellers say. One firm gave the demand for books on practical Christian living as the highest in the category. Some 2500 books on this type of subject had been sold by the firm last year. Books on spiritual healing were next in demand. About 1500 'devotional books—aids to prayer ind books on prayer—were sold. One bookshop, which caters for a fairly restricted public, said it had sold more copies of “Let the People Rejoice” by Billy Graham, which describes the New Zealand crusade at the evangelist, than any other book apart from the Bible

The crusade gave a stimulus to the religious book trade. Most booksellers report at least a trebling of Bibles sold in the weeks after the crusade. Altogether the stimulus seemed to last about six months before and six months after the crusade. Sales then returned to something a little better than normal.

Modern translations of the Bible are increasing in popularity, but the Authorised Version remains the best seller. A religious bookshop in Christchurch reported a 300 per cent increase in Bible sales for six months after the crusade. One bookseller said that most of the people who bought a modern translation also had an Authorised Version.

Dr. Woodard, the spiritual healer who has conducted two missions in New Zealand, created an interest in healing books on his first visit but his second left sales almost unaltered, it was reported by three religious bookshops which draw their buying public largely from persons interested in churches.

A firm which sells religious books as one of many lines found that the second visit created a big enough demand for them to sell 300 to 400 books within two weeks after Dr. Woodard’s arrival