BARGAINLOOKS :

Reading Be tween The Lines
The "Left Book Club"
Why 2 8 ,000 Subscribers
In Six Months ?
Teacher Of Socialist Ideals And Action
ONE OF THE MOST MODERN OF PUBLISHERS IS THE FIRM OF GOLLANCZ, WHOSE CHAIRMAN AND GOVERNING DIRECTOR IS VICTOR GOLLANCZ, WHO PUBLISHES ALL KINDS OF BOOKS, INCLUDING BOOKS OF THE OXFORD GROUP; BUT WITHIN RECENT MONTHS AN IDEA OF HIS HAS BEEN ATTAINING EVEN GREATER PROMINENCE AND SCOPE: THE LEFT BOOK CLUB.
Let us say at once that we have no quarrel with Mr. Gollancz for inaugur ating this venture, He publicly informs us that his recreation is to sit in the sun d to argue, and the purpose of his Book Club is, we suppose, to give his reade4 the chance of sitting in the sun and arguing about Communism and its closes allies of the Left.
However, Air. Gollancz, has long since ceased to leave it at that, and his Left Book Club has, under the shadow of a general book publishing business and, we must suppose, with its not inconsiderable help in kind, developed into a country-wide organisation for the dissemination of Socialist doctrine and Socialist action.
Eve the Book Trade are growing restive, not ause they care very much about Mr. Galls cz's politics, but because the Left Book Club is leaving the well-tried paths of th hook trade, while sheltering under its na e and rejecting its code.
In organ—for it has a monthly organ, Left ook News—it states:
Material Loss to Sellers Wit wish we could think that the bookselles' objection to the central distribution through the Workers' Bookshop of the Left books were due more to their annoyance at being unable to boycott the sales of an orga1isation whose singleness of purpose is scar ely in keeping with the " free-speech " pub shing traditions of this country, than to teir objection to someone else getting thc istributors' profits.
However this be, everyone should be made aware of the nature and scope of the Left Book Club, whose membership 'has jumised to 28,000 in six months!
Has it been solely the literary excellence of its products which has caused this phenontenal rise?
Arc Professor Laski, the avowed Socialist tin the fullest sense) professor at London University. Mr. John Strachey, who, if not a C mmunist, is as near one as makes no diff rence, and Mr. Gollancz himself, the thr4e selectors of books published by the clu , so wise that they can select books to which the public automatically rallies?
Brains and Money
Let us sec the names of some of the books. Thorels France Today and the People's Front: Muller's Out of the Night— A Biologist's View of the Future; Rudolf 1
01 en's Hitler the Pawn; Strachey's Theory Practice of bootok sS°ar'ciraolisssint'o the Dialectical -1 an 0 Pgerat
M terialism, etc., etc.
ouily unserious British reading public cannot be easy. It requires lots of money and brains.
So Mr. Gollancz has not only provided a stimulating monthly newspaper, but undertaken the organisation of the country into local groups of active workers for the Cause.
On What Success Depends
I-le says about these local groups: " We certainly do not envisage the Left Book Club as a new party . . . We can perhaps best express it by saying that if our membership were several millions instead of 23,000 (October) then the Left Book Club would automatically be a great Union of all Left parties." (This, of course, would include non-Socialist members of the Labour Party).
" The Left Book Club," quotes Mr. Gollancz enthusiastically, " provides the shot, the local groups fire that shot individually and collectively in every circle, political and otherwise, possible."
Another quotation from a local group: " My main object is to form a series of groups in my districts among active Socialists . . ."
" The Popular Front movement can succeed only if it has great masses of opinion behind it. Left Club groups ... must clearly take every means in their power to ensure that the Club itself should grow in membership.
" Several groups are making a voluntary levy with a view to creating a fund for advertising and obtaining members in other ways that cost money."
Gollancz a Dictator?
Such quotations give one an idea of what afoot and how interestingly large is the itructure that is being built upon an apparently literary venture sponsored by a distinguished publisher.
1 Or it may be that the whole thing is but
clever way of increasing Mr. Gollancz's sales. But. whatever the truth, Catholics Should be well aware of what is happening. for the enemy does not lie in the open, in Parliament; it is disguised and lurks in the least-expected quarters.
Think of all this when your eye lights upon one of those full page advertisements of Messrs. Gollancz's list in the Sunday papers.
Who knows but that one day Victor Gollancz may our dictator!