"BLATANT BOOSTING"

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 19, 22 July 1933, Page 18

"BLATANT BOOSTING"

"In recent years, "says the Halifax Library Readers' Guide, "a vast army of new readers —the product of the elementary school —has been recruited from a lower mental stratum, and their intelligent use of the printed page needs more encouragement and direction. Probably it is the influx of the less equipped reader which prevents the returns from public libraries showing a greater increase in solid reading than is apparent. An examination of the use of numerous subscription libraries reveals an ever greater demand for the lightest literature, and it is also true to say that the more educated patrons" of expensive libraries show little, if any, greater appreciation of the good fare available than their less educated brethren. One factor against any greater extension of better reading is the blatant advertising and boosting of 'best-sellers,' only a small number of which are worth attention. As a matter of. fact, the whole subject of book reviewing needs serious consideration; much of it is badly done, and" most disappointing. Particularly does this apply to the reviewing of fiction."