Armed Services Editions Armed Services Editions ( ASEs ) were small , compact , paperback books printed by the Council on Books in Wartime for distribution within the American military during World War II . This program was in effect from 1943 to 1946 . The ASEs were designed to provide entertainment to soldiers serving overseas , while also educating them about political , historical , and military issues . The slogan of the Council on Books in Wartime was , " Books are weapons in the war of ideas . " ASE Titles . The ASE program featured an array of fiction and non - fiction titles , including classics , contemporary bestsellers , biographies , drama , poetry , and genre fiction ( mysteries , sports , fantasy , action / adventure , westerns ) . Non - fiction books included biographies , religious / self - help titles , and science titles . Most of these books were printed in unabridged versions . The distinctive covers bore the description , " Armed Services Edition : This is the Complete Book - - Not a Digest . " Seventy - nine ( 79 ) of the titles printed were abridged , usually for length rather than content . These bore the slogan , " Condensed for wartime reading , " or slight variations such as " Slightly condensed for rapid reading . " Over the life of the program , over 123 million copies of 1 , 322 books were printed . This makes the ASE program one of the largest wide - scale distributions of free books in history . Of the 1 , 322 books , 1 , 227 were unique titles and 95 were reprints of titles issued earlier in the series . Sixty - three ( 63 ) of the titles were " made books " ; they were collections of short stories , poems , plays , essays , or radio plays , usually by the same author , that were assembled and published together for the first time . A complete , extant collection of all 1 , 322 ASE books is held at the Library of Congress . For a list of titles in the series , and to see how the books were numbered , see . Publishing . The small books were convenient for soldiers because they fit easily into a cargo pocket . Finished size varied slightly , from 5½ " to 6½ " long and from 3⅞ " to 4½ " high . Unlike traditional paperbacks , most of the ASEs were bound on the short side of the text block rather than the long side , due to the printing presses used . A few titles near the end of the series were published in traditional paperback format with the spine on the long side . Armed Services Editions were printed on digest and pulp magazine presses , usually in two columns per page for easier reading . Some ASEs were stapled along the binding , in addition to being glued , to make them sturdier . Because the Council on Books in Wartime made use of magazine presses to print ASEs when the presses were not in use , printing costs were low . The cost for printing was around 6 cents per copy , and royalties of one cent per copy were split between authors and publishers . This early experiment with mass paperback printing helped to prove the viability of paperback publishing in the United States . Popularity . ASEs were apparently very popular among the armed forces . Copies were shared , re - read , and ripped into sections so they could accommodate two or more readers at once . A contemporary newspaper article recounted , " The hunger for these books , evidenced by the way they are read to tatters , is astounding even to the Army and Navy officers and the book - trade officials who conceived Editions for the Armed Services " ( Wittels , 11 ) . For some readers , the ASEs were the first books they had picked up since high school . Armed Services Editions Today . Today , many Armed Services Editions are still readily available from used booksellers . However , the rarer titles from the series are difficult to find and very valuable . The scarcest tend to be the titles produced at the beginning and the ending of the series . Other titles , such as " Superman " and " A Rose for Emily , " are more common but valuable because they appeal to a wider array of collectors . A complete set of ASEs is owned by the Library of Congress . Near - complete sets are in the libraries of the University of Alabama , the University of South Carolina and the University of Virginia . The University of Notre Dame boasts 1064 titles , and the University of Texas , the University of Rochester , Princeton University , Dartmouth College and the University of Wisconsin – Madison have special Armed Services Edition collections , as do many other libraries . In addition to the sets belonging to institutions , as listed above , there is one known complete set and another near - complete set ( missing 2 books ) which are held by private collectors .