BOOKS OF THE WEEK

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 76, 26 September 1936, Page 26

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

The Chief Librarian of the Wellington Public Libraries has chosen "The Island of Sheep," by John Buchan, as the book of the week, and has furnished the following review:—

There are many people to whim the publication of a new novel by John Buclfsn is an event to be looked forward to for months ahead. It was said that when he took up Ms official duties in Canada and tne title of Lord Tweedsmuir that he would be unable to devote himself to the writing of fiction during his term of office. However, "The Island of Sheep" has appeared and, whether or not it was written before he entered on his viceregal duties, Mr. Buchan has made it a worthy successor to the long list of books which already stands to his credit. It is unnecessary to say that the book is a success: Mr. Buchan htis never written a failure, and besides any book with Sandy Clanroyden, Archie Roylance, and even old Peter Pienaar could not fail to be anything but thrilling and engrossing. "The Island of Sheep" is told by Dick Hannay, who feels that old age has him in its grip, that he is not growing old gracefully, and that many of the things for which he has striven and has begun now that he has them to take as commonplace, have lost their savour now that the period of striving is. over. This does not apply only to himself but to one of his college friends, Lombard, whom he'remembers as a young man in South Africa swearing a strange vow on top of a kopje after a brush with savages and evil whites. Lombard appears to be fat, lazy, engrossed in golf, and a very different person from the active young idealist whom Hann/y had known years before. However, when the son of old Haraldsen, the queer old Viking to whom men had sworn allegiance, turns up an abject terror, Lombard and Hannay are the friends to whom he turns, and they do not fail him. Even Peter John. Dick Hannay's son, turns out to be a valuable ally in the contest (first on Hannay's estate, then on Clanroyden's, and finally in the Island of Sheep), which Haraldsen's friends have to wage with D'lngraville, the French ace whose death had been presumed but who is none the less still alive and a powerful force for evil, and who has alive with him Barralty, a financier with an amateur's interest in art and things intellectual, and a thoroughly evil disposition; Troth, a buccaneering ruffian who has redeeming features; and Albinus, who is shifty and untrustworthy, to say the least.

One scheme after another springs to life on the paper as Mr. Buchan shifts the scene. At first breakfast in Hannay's house, where the talk is all of hawking, Peter John's favourite hobby; forests; parts of Scotland; the African veldts, and the Island of Sheep, the green pastures washed by the sea and full of the strange old treasures that Haraldsen's father had collected.

One can only hope after reading "The Island of Sheep" that Mr. Buchan's official duties will not be so onerous as to prevent him from continuing the series. It would be something of a deprivation to lose sight altogether of Clanroyden, Roy lance, and Hannay himself. RECENT LIBRARY ADDITIONS. Other titles selected - from recent accession lists are as follows:— General.—"Recent Economic Changes in New Zealand," by W. B. Sutch; "The Phantom Paradise," by J. H. Niau; "The Man with the Baton," by D. Ewen. Fiction.—"Valiant is the Word for Carrie," by B. Benfield; "Overture, Beginners," by J. Moore; "Tomorrow to Fresh Woods," by R. Le Fleming.