OF MAKING MANY BOOKS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 291, 19 January 1945, Page 17

OF MAKING MANY BOOKS

PUBLISHING IN PEACE AND WAR. By Stanley Unwin. George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London. ANYBODY who has ever written a book, or who. intends to write a book, or who merely likes reading them,

should be interested fn this concise, clear account of the technical processes through which a manuscript goes after the author lays down his pen and before it appears (if he is lucky) in the shops. Book publishing, as the author says, is quite different from what most people suppose. While it is not a branch of the Black Art, nor even perhaps a profession, it is "at once an art, a craft, and business, for which a curious and unusual combination of qualifications is desirable." And Mr, Unwin of course knows what he is talking about: he is past-president of the International Publishers’ Congress, He writes particularly about conditions in Great Britain, but they are not fundamentally different from those. here,

Everything he says is to the point, but some of. his comments are particularly illuminating: in particular his reference to qualities of paper. "For! some quite inexplicable reason (he says) the public in pre-war days measured the value of a book by its bulk. The identical book which was ‘poor yalue’ when it bulked half-an-inch became ‘good value’ when it was printed on fluffy paper which bulked an inch, and the sad and amusing thing about it-take your choice’ toe, the chief difference between thi books of sir fluity paper. It is rather like saying that the of an egg is better value when beaten up because it occupies so much more space, firm, well rolled paper can be bound more securely, will last longer, and’ is in every way better than a fluffy one, and I hope that none of you will be misled into thinking that unnecessary bulk gives a book ee value, but that on the Ears you recognise it for what it is-a positive advantage and a sham."