DEARER NOVEL

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 142, 15 June 1920, Page 5

DEARER NOVEL

DOES NOT AFFECT DEMAND. TECHNICAL READERS HARD HIT. BOOM IN SECOVD-HAND WORKS. LTBRATMES? LONG LTST OF BOOK BORROWERS. As&ed if he had experienced any difaerence in the volume of business since the high pricee of books had been ruling, a leading bookseller eaid it wae negligible, except in one branch of the business. The exception was in technical and trade books. The people who bought that claes of literature had to look at a shilling twice. Technical books were generally higher in price than the general run literature, and when the cost of a book jumped from ten shillings to a pound, it meant that people could not afford to buy. Tn fiction and the lighter kinds of literature there had not been and noticeable falMng off. Although the price of some booke had doubled since the war it must Tie remembered that even then the actual amount was not enormous. "For instance," said the '"3tarV informant, "a woman will go i over the way and give five, six, and per- ; haps seven guineas for a hat without a murmur. She comes in for a book, and if we ask sixpence or a shilling more she talks like a Dutch uncle, and says the thing js scandalous. I had a ease the other day where a man came in for a i certain artkle, the price of which ras 13d. He became quite abusive. and threatened to write to the Profiteering Tribunal. I told him I wished he would, ! and as a matter of fact the very article sold to him for r!d could not now be purchased by us for less than 6d." I Second-hand boole dealers say they I have never hjul such a run as they have ; since the. price of boolre went up. The , runke of their customers include people ■ that would never previously have ; thought it worth while to look at a book that Eomeoiy else had handled. The price of the'*econd-ha.nd book has gone up in -proportion to the rife in value of its new brother in all the glory of uncut leaves and attractive loose picture cover in gaudy tints. The ordinary light story, cheap edition, that before the wareould'be i "bought f°r seven-pence or eightpence is i tio-w generally sold at 1/6 to i[, and the old days of bargains for a few pence have i qnite gone. LIBRARIES PQP.LTUAR. One Of the most astonishing things in the book and library world has boon the astonishing increase in the number of subscribers to the lending department of the Auckland Free Public Library. For ] a long time the total had gone beyond ' the thousand mark, but the past twelve i months saw the number jump 'between I six and seven hundred. By the end of I the present year it may be confidently I I expected that the total will go over the | I two thousand mark. Tn addition to this there is also the Ley? Institute and the four suburban 'branches of the City Library. The class of reading aeked for at the City library is generally of a very hdgh standard. The old taunt "a lending library novel" has lost it 3 point. Gradually the trashy sort of book has been ! weeded out, and the borrowers never j mias it. Stuff of the Charles Garviee J standard is v minus quantity. Them is i a surprising demand for good eo-iid read•i ing. Technical boc-ks are naturally much 'in demand, and- work's dealing with economic and social questions soon get well-thumbed. Already the demand for i war books has thawed away to vaniehing point, and even the novel with the war background is a back number. It! is an eloquent proof to the rapid swing j of the pendulum to take down a om-e-j popular book on the war and note the sudden end. about the time of the armistice, to the long list of date-stamps ehowvng how hardly-worked the volume had been when the war had the world in its gTip. Another peculiar phase of the public mind is to bo seen •in the extraordinary demand for anything on spiritualism. The shelves are always ompty. and the books no eooner come in than they are out again—and being waited for by a long list of wruld-'be j reader?. This io undoubtedly a pathetic I side-light on the war. Already, however, the feverish demand for anything dealing witn the occult shows eigne of abating. It is significant that there is a marked inquiry for what are called "im- . proving" books, and books dealing with . life, health, and business. The war eeems 'to have made us more practical, and A more ambitious.