PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 16, 18 July 1936, Page 26

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

-The Chief Librarian of the Wellington Public Libraries has chosen "My Vagabondage," by Horace Annesley Vachell, as the book of the week, and has furnished N the following review:—

The vagabond type of travel book I has become more and more popular. Some of us have been enchanted with the little-known books of Walter Wilkinson, whose stories of his tramps through various English counties with his own puppet shows are so well and attractively written. New Zealand has its own vagabonds whose names are better known to us: Mr. d'Arcy Cresswell, who peddled his poems through the Old Country, followed by another writer with New Zealand affinities, Mr. Geoffrey Pollet, whose "Songs for Sixpence" is becoming deservedly popular; of a different character, but none the less attractive, is Mr. Lan Donnelly'sN "Joyous Pilgrimage," but none of these books has quite the same method or the same deftness of touch as Mr Vachell's new and sprightly production. Perhaps the nearest approach is Sir Philip Gibbs's "England Speaks," to which perhaps Mr. Vachell owes something of his method. It is a far cry from "The Hill" to "My Vagabondage," but all this.very English author's work is instinct with the leisurely and equable philosophy of the educated Englishman. --■ - ; .

Bath is his starting point in the present book, and one immediately contrasts his story of the history, the architecture, the waters, the literary associations, with the same subjects treated in a vastly different medium by Miss Edith Sitwell. Unlike most of the modern pilgrims, Mr. Vachell is able to make use of a motor-car without losing the direct contact which vthe tramp vagabonds have so successfully exploited. As one reviewer says: "He sighs more than once for the legs and the lungs of bygone years." Really this is a most entertaining book for the author is so erudite and knows so much about the history of the country he is traversing that he is able to illuminate each conversation (and he meets people of all walks of life) with relevant and interesting historical allusions. He journeys along the Welsh Border, by Monmouth, the Wye, Tintern, Chepstow and Raglan, Caldey, St. David's, Pembroke, Cardiff, Corfe, Purbeck, and Abbotsbury, then again through Somerset; the Quantocks Sedgmoor, Alfoxden, Taunton, and Watchet, discussing on the way dogs, literary figures, the great Box quarry, where we learn a good deal about the stone which is used in building and its different qualities, and descants upon Judge Jeffreys, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, and St.- Decuman. Then, towards the end of the book, come chapters written as a member of the Wine and Food Society, in which perhaps the most appealing passage is one on the subject of coffee. Mr. Vachell, versatile as always, reveals himself as a cultured gourmet, and not only that but one to whom the preparation of food and,drink is no secret; as is revealed by his remarks ujn the proper decanting of wine, the necessary temperatures at which they should be kept, the proper wine to be served with each course of a meal, and in particular a convincing exposition on the' fallacy that old wine needs no bush merely because it is old. Then follow a series of notes about wonderful meals in Spanish California,- the ideal salad, recipes for soups and savouries, and a bombe a la Vachell. There is no great purpose about this book, but it is very pleasant, very entertaining, and altogether unusual. RECENT LIBRARY ADDITIONS. Other titles selected from recent accession lists are as follows:—General—"From Peter the Great to Lenin" by S. P. Turin; "By Mountain, Moor and Loch," by T. Nichol; "Leadership Through the Ages," by Sir G. F. MacMunn. Fiction: "The Road to Glory" by F. B. Austin; "The Sixth Beatitude'" by R. Hall; "Clear Waters," by O. Ru'fr ter.