Maureen Corrigan

The greatest distribution was on the eve of D-Day.

Every soldier going over in a landing craft carried an ASE in his pocket.

The most popular of the D-Day titles was Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Just as inspiring, to my mind, was the fact that the council's selection committee didn't limit its choices to just those books they assumed the troops would like.

Sure, there were plenty of cowboy stories, Tarzan tales, and suspense fiction.

Forever Amber, a steamy historical romance by Kathleen Windsor, was especially popular.

But among the 1,322 titles produced during the lifetime of the ASCs were Moby Dick, biographies of Frederick Douglass and Queen Victoria, essays by Lincoln and Emerson, and poetry collections by Longfellow, Keats, and Edna St.

Vincent Millay.

It must be acknowledged that the ASEs were overwhelmingly written by white authors.

It should also be acknowledged that there were efforts to ban some of the books.

In A Librarian's War, Manning describes how, in advance of the 1944 presidential election, armed services editions that were perceived, however indirectly, to favor then-President Roosevelt were targeted for purging.

In response, newspapers around the country ran editorials and letters from readers decrying the Bannings.

Even the troops themselves got wind of the Bannings and protested.

Manning quotes one soldier's letter that says, "...it will be recalled that Mr. Hitler got his start by banning and burning books with which he, in his wisdom, did not agree."

Widespread pushback triumphed, and soldiers' freedom to read prevailed.

If you can't wait for a librarian's war, there are other good books to read about the Armed Services editions, including Manning's earlier book on the program called When Books Went to War and a slim volume published by the Library of Congress called Books in Action.

I found myself at the Library of Congress back in 2012, on the trail of how The Great Gatsby, published in 1925 to mixed reviews and disappointing sales, came back from relative obscurity so quickly after F. Scott Fitzgerald's death in 1940.

A crucial part of the answer was the Armed Services Editions.

Gatsby was published as an ASE in 1945.

155,000 copies were distributed to servicemen that year.