FOR some time past I have been collecting comments illustrating the views of novelists on popular reading habits, and I have been much interested to find the extent to which they have expressed themselves on the subject through the mouths of their characters. The general subject is one of some interest to librarians, and the collection of extracts I have made may amuse colleagues, even though it may not instruct them. We may take it that the novelists are qualified to make such observations in view of their natural interest in books and in the habits of their readers. So what can be more enticing to them than to describe their heroes' or their villains' books and their use of them? No doubt the extracts given will carry some sort of a lesson for librarians. And so to it …