Go into any average provincial town and the last thing you will find is a decent book-shop. More than one great industrial town of a population of over a hundred thousand has only one such shop, and that is generally kept going by the sale of school-books. It is because we cannot afford to buy books. We spend six 【S1】______ hundred million pounds a year on the beer, but we certainly do not 【S2】______ spend six hundred million pence on literature. Many people can 【S3】______ afford to buy motor-cars with anything from seven hundred pounds 【S4】______ would be aghast at the idea of spending a single pound occasionally on a book. Yet, merely like furniture, books are a cheaper and 【S5】______ better decoration than blue chinas or the eighteenth century chairs. 【S6】______ They are better because they put out the stamp of individuality 【S7】______ upon a house. The desire of the eighteenth century chairs and blue 【S8】______ china may represent not as a genuine personal taste for beautiful 【S9】______ things, but an artificial passion for rare and expensive ones. On the other hand, a collection of books will give a house character and meaning. It should tell you about its. 【S10】______ 【S1】