Picking Among The Paperbacks

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29844, 9 June 1962, Page 3

Picking Among The Paperbacks

1 The new Aldine paperbacks ' (published by J. M. Dent) are a very mixed bag including a “Treasury of Humorous Quotations,” edited by Nicolas Bentley and Evan Esar. People who possess or who have seen the hardback edition will know that wit of the ages has been scanned and culled for this selection. “Versus.” by Ogden Nash and “Under Milk Wood.” by Dylan Thomas are works that need neither description nor recommendation. But perhaps the most attractive in the bag is a story not so well known as the others—- " Who Walk Alone,” the heroic story of a man who served in the Spanish-Ameri-can war in the Philippines, and some years after returning home found he had contracted leprosy. Ned Langford's story of life in a leper colony really does, as one reviewer has said, reveal the whole gamut of human emotions. ?

The Unwin Books are reprints of notable works. Many people will be grateful to have in paperback format such works as G. Lowes Dickinson’s “A Modern Symposium” (with an introduction by E. M. Forster). Jawaharlal Nehru’s "India’s Freedom,” J. M. Synge’s "Playboy of the Western World,” and Erich Fromm’s "The Art of Loving.” The Fontana Library has made an excellent job of a paperback of Professor L. Dudley Stamp’s “Britain’s Structure and Scenery.” The workmanlike title covers a book that in text, sketch and picture describes not only the surface features of Britain, but details also, in non-tech-nical language, the long and complex series of events that have given the land its present form. Collins’s Fontana issue of “My Early Life." the story of the first 25 years of Winston Churchill’s life will be welcomed by ■ new constituency readers who are

not acquainted with his work.

“The Perennial Philosophy”’ by Aldous Huxley, is a welcome addition to the Fontana paperbacks. Huxley attempts to present the highest common factor of all theologies by taking passages from all religions and connecting them. The work is an antholcgy of great and curious learning. That no single factor holds all religions together does not invalidate the truth that all religions seek the same goal, union with the Divine.

“Panama Is Burning,” by Philip Lindsay (Australian Pocket Books), is a vivid narrative of the saek of Panama centuries ago A tumultuous account of murders, rape, violence and destruction make a pitiless story. “Children of the Sun” (Pan Books) is the moving story of the appalling poverty, crime and vice of the slums of Naples. It is almost redeemed b£ the

humanity of a prjest who dedicates his life to the saving of human wreckage “The Family Nobody Wanted” (Hodder Paperbacks), is a delightful story of the adoption of twelve children of mixed racial parentage. A celebrated arrival among paperbacks is Ivor Jennings’ “The British Constitution” which, in hardbacks had to be reprinted 12 times since it was first published in 1941. The paperback edition is exceliewtly printed on good paper and has illustrations worthy of the text. A new batch of Nelson Juniors includes besides adventure stories by Stephen Mogridge. Elisabeth Kyle and Lady Kitty Ritson. two instructional numbers. One. “Let's Go Climbing" gives elementary information for the embryonic mountaineer. The author is a practical climber. In the other. “Let's Go Cycling.” Reginald C. Shaw describes cycling as a pleasure and a sport.