MISCELLANY

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 28008, 30 June 1956, Page 5

MISCELLANY

The World’s Warships. By Raymond V. B. Blackman, A.M.1.N.A., A.I.Mar.E. Macdonald. 251 pp.

This handy little book will be of great value to students of naval affairs, and also to anyone with a more than passing interest in ships of war. It contains full descriptions and technical data of all major ships of the principal Powers, together with photographs. Its author is the editor of “Jane’s Fighting Ships.”

Kuwait Was My Home. By Zahra Freeth. George Allen and Unwin. 158 pp.

Writing from the basis of considerable personal and family experience of the country. Mrs Freeth tackles a potentially fascinating subject in a disappointing way. Her aim is to show the changes in Kuwait since the exploitation of the local oil. As an opening, her chapter on the historical background is confusing. Some subsequent chapters certainly do describe the changes, but they are written by the pen of an author with little gift of narrative. There are occasional flashes of inspiration but too few to make the book really live.

A Taste For Travel. By Irene Holdsworth. Seeley Service. 138 pp.

The author frankly states that English weather depresses her, that she is only happy when travelling in sunny lands and that this book is written in the hope that it will earn her enough to go travelling again. One can see little other reason for the book’s existence. We are given fleeting glimpses of the author’s stopping places during extensive journeys around Mediterranean coasts and lakes. Water is a necessity for the writer since the quality of the bathing can make or mar a place in her opinion. She loves the lands through which she travels, of that there is no doubt, but a travel book is far more satisfying if it does not consist largely of “such and such a hotel was elaborate and expensive while the so and so pension in a back street was cheap, surprisingly clean and . . . etc.” Her one brief quotation from a holiday diary, though self-conscious, is much more worthwhile than most of the rest of the book.