NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18924, 12 February 1927, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

FROM ADAM TO ABD-EL-KRIM. M»urcsquM. By C. P. Hawkes. Mctbuen and Co. This is a tantalising book, to the point almost of exasperation. Mr llawkes writes so well and knows so intu' covers so much ground and time, and has so geueious a conception ol the uses of variety, that it is impossible not to follow him and be interested. And yet you cannot, at any single stage in his narrative be sure thai you are seeing the wood and not i'.2 trees. A more mercenary bookmaker would have made half-a-dozen volumes out of so much history, geography, ethnology, anil climatology, but Mr llawkes throws h ; s knowledge about as if it were anybody's treasure, or easily could be. and bewilders you by his off-hand generosity. North Africa, and the islands that fringe it or i. ig like the Prophet's coffin between the kingdoms that arc and the empires that used to be, is still one of the most fascinating places on the face of the globe, and it is largely because he feels this fascination that Mr Hnwkes takes such liberties with his readers. For it is almost an insolent liberty to assume or pretend—Mr Hawkes may after all he a cruel humorist—that the average reader who is taken to Tangier knows what England was doing there in 1834. or can be told without bewilderment that the pelota which is played throughout the Spanish Basque provinces of Biscayn, Gtiipuzcoa. Alava. and the Pamplona district of Navarre is, liko the polo halls which were clicking in Iran sis hundred years before Christ, a reminder and proof of the fascination "catch' games have always hnd for the human race since Adam sported with Eve tinder the apple-tree in Iraq. Such fliehts are not for all. or for nearly all, or fo r verv mnnv even among the so-called cultivated, hut Mr Hawkes gives you about two to the page, and refuses to notice your ascending eyebrows. He is merciful only lie takes up his camera, hut that is eighteen times nnlv between Eden and Abd-el-Kiiin'sGehenna, and leaves you longing for more.

" THE DOMINION AS IT IS «» ! The Emolrc''j Junior Partnor. By C. A. Wilson. Williams and Norgate.

Mr Wilson's book is oddly designed, and oddly filled in, but it is not uninteresting. If it bad been written wholly for readers overseas one might have supposed that the idea was to catch the attention of potential travellers, and luro them south. But Mr Wilson "hopes and believes" that his volume, besides attracting people hero for "sight-seeing or sport," will prove of interest to "our own people, who can judge of its accuracy and fairness." It will interest Mr Wilson's own people whether they agree that it is accurate or do not, but their interest will have a good deal of the curiosity in it with which they would watch a tart carrying a horse. Mr Wilson begins in the Winterless North and passes rapidly through Taihape and other such arresting places to the wild cattle and pigs which can be shot on Stewart Island. He then describes our weather and our flora and fauna, our fish, and our island possessions, and being now about n thiwl of tho way through his story, jumps back to the stone-age Maori and loses himself for 120 pages. It is in fact only as a kind of afterthought thnt ho adds a couple of short chapters on the social, political, and industrial conditions of the few white people here, nnd he even then returns to Maori pronunciation. Yet Sir James Parr in a foreword, passes the boot on t'o English readers as "a volume of fieneral information dealing comptehensivelv with the most important phases of New Zealand's history and development, nnd depicting the Dominion ns it is to-day."

MY DAILY MESSAGE. », Tjaiiv Mogsaco. By Millicont Preston m Stanley. cSESU Publishing Company. Sydney. . . Thero must have Iwcn solemn rojoic,iu„ among members of tho Board of Censors when "My Daily Message, by Miss Millicont Preston Stanley, reached New Zealand. It is one of thoso vcrv rare books whoso moral tone is not merely unimpeachable, but challougingly upHftijig-a blend of Dr. Frank Crane and tho late, nnd taW, Mia Wheeler Wilcox. . . . "« should realise that no sorrow will last, „o pain or situation endrtro for over "Catch this minute; it is DBssing-ereii now." . • • "W vou make of your troubles determines what they will mnko of you. . • • "Bo a self-starter, and start out atte. some of the big prizes of life." • • • "Be an optimist—and put the world n vour debt," nnd so on and so forth till 'you nlreadv feel your wings growing. Miss Stanley is a memlier of tho New South Wales Parliament, "whose independence of thought has made her a living force in tho community," nnd we linvo it on the authority of Mr William Morris Hughes, "that this little book contains 'in words as dear as n voice on n frosty night, a. simple yet sufficient philnsnphv nf life. Perhaps this means that "My P*"? Message" contains the simple faith of the politician.

A PUPIL OF MR BIJCHAN? Moteley's Concession. By 0. Nln» Boyle. George Allen and TJnwin, ltd. If Miss Boyle writes many more novels like "Moteley's Concession " she will be alarming Mr John Buchan. Only Mr Buchan, or one of his imitators, would create Torronascar. a little medkeval kingdom in the Pyrenees, peopled by a race of picturesque blackguards, for the express purpose of giving his hero, Stephen Sebastian, a mineral concession hunter, a background worthy of his fiery spirit. There is an attempted murder, in the ;ir»t three or four pages, and after that a murder or a kidnapping in each chapter. Sebastian, besides getting entangled with the inevitable dark-eyed damosel, starts a war with Spain, abducts a girl from a convent, becomes generalissimo of the Torronascan army, causes tho League of Nations a great deal of anxiety, and finally gets his concession and a wife. Tho other principals are an erratic gentleman named Hawk, who sings toreador songs very ably, and a Torronascan lady who commits two horribly efficient murders. Miss Boyle has an eye for the picturesque that many a more pretentious writer might envy, and, a much rarer quality, an eye for character. SPOILED BY THE .LADY. The Kid Glove Skipper. By Lawrence David. Leonard Farsont. Books dealing with life in a community of men at sea always |iave a certain fascination, perhaps because they reflect wide spaces and an untrammelled existence. Therefore, as Lawrence David was on familiar ground, it would have been better if he had confined ••The Kid Olove Skipper" entirely to his hero's war and sea experience-i. These are all natural and interesting, but the book fails lamentably with the introduction of an unconvincing painted lady, involving an impossibly rapid promotion to secure a dramatic effect. The description of a West Indian hurricane is a vivid piece of writing, but the book aa a whole, and it

seems to be a first novel, is marred by faultv feminine psychology and inattention to detail. A LITERARY WHIRLWIND., Slow Burgess. By Charles Ald.n Beltier. Hodder and Stoughton. To give substance and point to many American novels, it is necessary to maintain the fiction that American justice is a farce or worse. "Slow Burgess. ' by Charles Alden Seltzer, depends for its development almost entirely on a series of happenings and circumstances which would bo ridiculous in anv other part of the world. It is no book" for a sceptic or a cynic, but those who like to be carried along in a whirlwind of wild events culminating in a general shoot-up will find it to their tnsto. MARRED IN THE HANDLING. The Fighting Slogin. By H. A. Cody. Hcdder and Stooghton. Handled by an abler pen, "Tho Fighting Slogan," by H. A. Cody, could have been a powerful book. The subject is an unusual one, an attempt by tho Fenians to gain a footing in Canada; but Mr Codv has not the technique necessary to deal with it. His writing is stilted, his humour heavy, p.nd in the early stages where the reader has to be "caught" the interest fiVg3 through lack of incident. Later there is plenty of incident, but many readers will imver reach it. Most of the characters, also, are backwoods folk, who speak in dialect, bat it is not t pungent enough dialect to be impressive).