BOOKS FOR UNEMPLOYED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 25, 30 January 1934, Page 6

BOOKS FOR UNEMPLOYED.

Some odd facts about the unemployed man's tastes in reading have come out of Lord Eustace Percy's scheme for supplying a million books for unemployed readers (says the "■Manchester Guardian"). At present the scheme.is making a bold bid to give to each of the thousand centres of unemployed in the country the nucleus of a library, with as unofficial motto the words "A book a man," and more and more books are being needed every day.

The committee administering the scheme in London has been impressed by the fact that each part of the country has its own definite taste in reading. In the North, for instance, the demand is for books on practical subjects, such as handicrafts and languages—"Only books of the non-fiction type" is often their cry. The Welsh are all for economics and political theory, while the South demands more than (iO per cent fiction. Almost every centre has asked for useful books on gardening, and to meet the demand the Society of Friends has presented to those in charge of the scheme over a thousand copies of their new handbook on she cultivation o£ allotments.