The rise of electronic, user generated, publishing has not necessarily led to an increase in poorly produced literature, writes Robert McCrum, who says the 1960s and 1970s, a period regarded by some as the golden age of book publishing, had no shortage of less than memorable writing.

The present age of literary excess does not wield a monopoly in the publication of bad books. There was plenty of rubbish published in the 1960s and 70s; perhaps not in quite such volume, but then there are more books published now than ever before. As I piled up a shoddy ziggurat of gaudy paperbacks (five shillings here, 50p there), wartime derring-do, James Bond rip-offs, and pop psychology, I was forced to conclude that every age creates its share of ephemera.