I’m reading an old Penguin (Pelican) science book called Microbes by the Million by Hugh Nicol. It dates from 1939 and I bought it for 50p at the monthly book sale in the Botanic Gardens.
Early in the book, it is mentioned that the world’s population is two-thousand million as if that were uncontrollably large. It is also mentioned that the first edition of this book was printed 50,000 times. Today, 2,000 sales is considered relatively good.
Nicol dedicates the book “To Daughter Barbara who became ‘Penguin’-Conscious at a very early age,” and, under the heading of “How to Use This Book,” he writes, “To the general reader I would say: just read it and get what you can out of it.”