The National Book League and the Librarian Available to Purchase

BRITAIN'S attitude to books has undergone a spectacular change during the war. There has been an unprecedented increase in the demand for books. The annual turnover of the publishing trade has, despite paper rationing and labour restrictions, increased two‐fold since 1937. Books like Trevelyan's English Social History have not merely had fantastically large sales, but have at times been sought as eagerly as silk stockings or Scotch whisky. Public library figures vary much from district to district, but there must be few libraries that do not report a substantial increase in the issue of books.