![]() ![]() Cutting against expectations in the masculine military world, however, romance novels proved exceptionally popular. Others thrilled to tough guy detectives like Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer. Some service members, looking ahead to entering the workforce after the war, sought to improve themselves with “deep” reading. And while the CBW carefully edited its list, in consultation with government and military agencies, to ensure that no books were issued that might undermine the war effort or faith in America’s allies, publishers nevertheless recognized the importance of providing a broad range of entertaining materials suitable for all tastes. Titles ran the gamut from classics to potboilers. Chief among these were the Armed Services Editions, vetted by the nonprofit Council on Books in Wartime (CBW) and issued to service members in vast quantities from 1943 until 1947, two years after the war ended. Publishers responded by issuing cheap paperback editions-first popularized during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but now appearing in print runs reaching into the tens of millions. The demand for reading material was intense. ![]() ![]() service members on fronts from Europe to North Africa and the Pacific spent the preponderance of their time away from the fighting: sometimes working or drilling, but more often just waiting for something to happen. World War II inaugurated the era of the mass-market paperback novel. ![]()
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