A history about books, librarians, publishers, and war is making waves. Molly Guptill Manning’s When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; OverDrive Sample) tells the true story of how the book world helped boost morale by providing American soldiers with paperback editions of titles such as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and The Great Gatsby.

Portable versions of these books allowed soldiers to read on their down time and reminded them of home and what they were fighting for.

Manning’s book is getting glowing coverage in an array of sources including USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, Wired, The Wall Street Journal, and the Smithsonian. Such widespread attention triggers holds. Some libraries are showing a 5:1 ratio and on light ordering. The New York Times says that Manning’s book feels like “the bibliophile’s equivalent of It’s a Wonderful Life.” How can you beat that?

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 4th, 2015 at 3:56 pm and is filed under 2014 -- Fall, History, Nonfiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.