Brace yourself for the battery-hen age of the book

Books are as mixed a blessing as free school dinners. Whoever thinks otherwise has no idea just how influential or dangerous they can be. Anyone so deluded must know nothing about them. Or so Rosemary Goring thought before reading the Bookseller’s recent survey on the habits of British readers.

According to the Bookseller, the book trade’s magazine, their latest concern is that while they have proved very good at selling books to people who like books, they still haven’t managed to attract non-readers.