SPORTING BOOKS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25609, 25 September 1948, Page 3

SPORTING BOOKS

TENNIS Considering how colourful are both the game and its players, the literature 6f lawn tennis has. been extraordinarily drab. OLLIFF ON TENNIS (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 188 pp.), by John Olliff, the former British Davis Cup player and lawn tennis correspondent for the “Daily Telegraph,” is one of the books that stand out. In part it is instructional; and that part is full of common-sense advice that will help the good player as much as the tyro. In the second half of the book Olliff deals with personalities; there his writing takes on sparkle and colour. Tennis may be a serious sport; but to Olliff it is something to be enjoyed. There are anecdotes which rank with the best, none better, perhaps, than the story of how Olliff and I. H. Wheatcroft at Wimbledon beat a fancied American pair, Stoefen and Sutter, after being two sets down and 5-2, 40-15 on Stoefen’s service in the third. At this point Wheatcroft, .who had scarcely hit a ball into court all day, discovered that he was wearing his reading glasses by mistake, changed, and proceeded to hit winners off every ball within reach. RIDER AND HORSE

George Roderick writes a very good novel about horses (and humans, of course), as readers of his “Gimcrack” will cofliially agree. APRIL FOOL (Eyre and Spottiswoode. 218 pp.) will make more readers agree, still more cordially. The easy, well-developed plot turns on the exchange of two foals, “as like as two peas,” and culminates in their eventual contest in the Grand National. Horse-lovers inter.-ted in’ the science of breeding for staying qualities will find a good deal to stimulate them; the non-specialists will find enough without the theory—horses, romance. stir and struggle, and a happy ending. Major P. R. Goldingham’s THE HORSE AND RIDER (Allen and Unwin, 143 pp.) is edited by Mr J. T. Hankinson as a volume uniform with his own excellent books on Rugby and Soccer, cricket, and hockey, and illustrated by Mr Y. E. S. Kirkpatrick, whose photographs contributed much to their success. Major Goldjngham’s work as riding instructor at Canford. Mr Hankinson’s, school, had produced its fine team in the 1937 International Horse Show: but Mr Hankinson emphasises Jiis “skill and patience ... in teaching the rank and file of the school riding.”, It would be impossible to overpraise the sense and simplicity and persuasive good humour with which this book is written. CRICKET

Mr Gerald Brodribb’s cricket anthology. THE ENGLISH GAME (Hollis and Carter. 234 pp.), is rich in delights, the expected and the unexpected, and not without those delightful' disappointments which are the happy reader’s opportunity to exclaim, “Now why didn’t he * . . ” It is neatly divided into eight sections —the Lure of Cricket, Early Days, Lord’s, Some of the Great, Cricket and the Countryside, “Colts,” The Lighter Side, and A Few Extras. Most of them allow Mr Brodribb to take a pretty broad sweep, from the green youth of the game to its green age. (You find Beldham, for instance, “Silver Billy” Beldham, in the early days and among the great, first in Bishop Montgomery’s description—the Bishop, that is, who fathered the Field-Marshal —and second in Nyren’s.) Mr Cardus and Mr Robert-son-Glasgow jointly top the score among writers quoted, which nicely exhibits Mr Brodribb’s judgment and courtesy together; and Mary Russell Mitford—he’s right again—has her place, not far behind them, with “Country Vicar,” E. V._ LucAs, the Rev. James Pyc-roft. Alfred Cochrane, and the host himself. Arr ong the surprises is a lovery, evocative paragraph from James Joyce; and another is a sentence in which John Stuart Mill turns, not with disdain, away. The dozen illustrations are happily chosen.

SHORT STORIES

FROM CHINA The 14 stories of Shen Tseng-Wen in THE CHINESE EARTH (Allen and Unwin. , 289 pp.) are translated by Ching Ti and Robert Payne, who jointly contribute an introduction. They are good stories, by one who (the translators say) has probably produced more books than any other living writer, and who—it is a more important fact —“regards the invasion of the west as something so unimportant in the long history of the Chinese race that it hardly ever enters into his stories.” That is just why they are sometimes a little baffling and again and again so provocative and absorbing. The wise reader will turn to and fro between them and Professor Goodrich’s “Short History of the Chinese People,” recently reviewed here. SENSIBILITY

Frances Bellerby’s THE ACORN AND THE CUP (Peter Davies. 240 pp.), a collection of 22 stories, shows a good deal of imaginative sensibility and penetration; but most of the stories seem to want something, which may here be felt to be a firmly conceived theme, there the substance to realise it. STRENGTH

Hallam Tennyson’s THE WALL OF DUST (Seeker and Warburg, 190 pp.) includes six stories. They contrast sharply with Miss Bellerby’s. His writing is much bolder; his scope is larger; he is never vague in theme or elusive in treatment. On the other hand, he has tendencies towards overemphasis to control, as in such stories as of the German woman who betrayed her best friend, and of a soldier who went mad in the desert; but there is no denying the impressiveness of his beginning.

him. after misadventures light-heart-edly encountered and passed, to the venture of marriage, as light-heartedly undertaken. “C’est agreable, la folie, n’est-ce-pas?” says Baptiste, hearing of tliis. Tres agreable. vraiment.