BOOKS & READERS

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18892, 6 January 1927, Page 6

BOOKS & READERS

CENSORSHIP IN N.Z. CHECK ON PRURIENCY. [THE PBBBB Spect»l Serrtct.] AUCKLAND, January 5. >"ew Zealand lias the highest per capita average of book readers in the world, said Mr U. C. South, jiresideut of the Ivew Zealand Retail Booksellers' Association, at the opening of the sixth annual conference in Auckland today. He added that in the last 10 years the books imported into the Dominion had increased in value two ,-ind a half times, and the population increase during the same period- had been only one and a lia,lf times. As the representative of retail booksellers on tho Now Zealand Censorship Board, Mr South said he believed the Board was doing quiet and usoful work. It was very liberal and iu no case had it exercised its function injudiciously or unwisely. The people of New Zealand had no cause for apprehension, regarding the operations of the Board. It had kept a check on prurient and sex spiced novels. Many booksellers would not touch literature of that type, and it was desirable to leave them with large powers as their own censors, but others had to bo occasionally watched. Taking everything into account the bookseller owed it to the community to keep a careful eye on the literature that passed through his shop. Last year over 11,000 volumes were published and no bookseller could hope to road all, but he simply had to walk warily and do hie best. Some publishers' books were perfectly safe, others had to be carefully scrutinised, and it was no wonder that a book was sometimes let through that should not be read. A Healthier Tone. Continuing Mr South said there had been a run on, and a glut in, prurient 'iterative. In almost all cases books of U.i" type had come from the pens of women, but the tendency was pass* ing, and the out and out sex novel wai disappearing to give place to a healthier tone which was coming into novel literature. English publishing was tending back towards the love novel of the quieter tvpe. The future love story would be the simple pure one of the "Freak books are not the bd«t sellers " remarked Mr South in conclusion. The bulk of the selling is made from the decent novel and from books of travel and experience. There never has been an age when so many books of biography and travel were published.