BOOK REVIEWS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 237, 7 October 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

BOOK REVIEWS.

Wo are indebted to Mr. Will Durant, the American philosopher and writer, for a book that is wholly modern. It is published by Messrs. Williams and Norgate, and bears "On the Meaning of Life." Mr. Durant paves the way for letters he got dealing with the subject in an ably written introduction, which he calls an Anthology of Doubt. Then comes a symposium of replies to his request to certain representative people, mostly Americans, to face "a question which our generation, perhaps more than any other, seems always ready to ask and never able to answer." He introduces and comments on tho writers and the replies they give, and, finally (in a kind of way) sums them up. These replies reveal varying mentalities and outlooks, and, it must be confessed, sometimes a conceit and flippancy that will irritate, if they do not sadden, widely-read and seriousminded readers. Some of them reveal ignorance of the contrast between the science of to-day and tho philosophy of a generation ago —a philosophy which those of them who are novelists and playwriters largely echo in their works, as well as an equally strange ignorance of writers on religion and theology, many of whom are not only outstanding scholars, but outstanding thinkers. Tho book should be read for its varying answers on the all important question of the meaning and worth of life, and as a commentary on much that passes for modern thought.

In "Tho Happiest Man," written by Mr. Reginald Kennedy-Cox-, and published by Hodder and Stoughton, we have told us the story of a well-bred and university-trained man beforo the war, in the war, and after it, more particularly the story of the work in the slums of East London, to which he has given himself. Mr. Kennedy-Cox gives us more than glimpses of English life, especially the life of London dock workers, and his book is not only true to reality, it is more impressively and racily written than many pretentious books of fiction that flood the book market. And it is a marvel ,of cheapness. Bound in paper covers, it is quite a bulky volume, and yet is sold at Home at a shilling.