A DELVE INTO THE BOOK-BAG

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 24 August 1935, Page 12

A DELVE INTO THE BOOK-BAG

The subject for next year’s Newdigate Prize Poem is “Rain”—a change from the usual classical tradition.

Hungary’s annual book week seems to have been a success again this year. Over two hundred tents and stalls were erected in the streets, and popular authors were besieged for their autographs. *****

Mr W. B. Yeats, who has just celebrated his seventieth birthday, is correcting the proofs of a new philosophi. cal work called “A Vision.” He also has a volume of poems ready for publication- *****

What is described as the authoritative life of H. M. Stanley, by Mr Frank Hird, has just been published by Messrs. Stanley Paul. Stanley’s journals, notes, and diaries have been largely used in the preparation of the book. *****

The output of the publishing trade from January to May of this year was a thousand books more than during the corresponding period of 1934, the total (according to “The Bookseller”; reaching the amazing figure of 7346. * S{i * * ♦

Mr Douglas Cockerell, the famous bookbinder of Letchworth, has been asked by the British Museum to bind the Codex Sinaiticus. He estimates that the binding he wili use l of Spanish mahogany and pigskin, will last five hundred years under library conditions. *****

A London “Observer” representative, on making inquiry, found that publishers of fiction reported that many more books are being offered to them and that the general standard of writing is vastly better than it was fifteen or even ten years ago. *****

The Rev. Bernard Walke, of St. Hilary, in Cornwall, has something of the allure of the young men who, a hundred years ago, founded the Oxford Movement. Though Father Walke is well known Jin England for his broadcast plays, he has only recently written his first full-length book—•‘Twenty Years at St. Hilary.’’ A procession of men and women—tramps and Prime Ministers, artists and monks—pass through its pages. Pride of place is given to the people of Cornwall iamong whom this courageous priest has spent the last twenty years. *****

Geoffrey Whitworth’s often-acted and many times reprinted miracle play 4 /‘Father Noah,” was, on its first appearance, greeted by the critics as a notable achievement. “In a few pages,” said the “Manchester Guardian,” “Mr Whitworth has made a real contribution to contemporary drama.” Now, after some years comes ‘Haunted Houses,” a full-length fantasy, this time on a modern theme, but touched equally with imagination. Challenged on the eve of his festival, St. Valentine permits an engaged couple to be brought face to face with three “domestic interiors,” all disastrous in their several ways. The lovers’ reaction to this foretaste of the married state forms a play almost as fascinating to read as it has already proved in stage performance at Home.

HUMAN STUPIDITY “No serious student of stupidity can spend more than a few hours investigating the conduct of businessmen without realising that at last he stands in the presence of stupid in_ competence so vast and so deep that only a tgreat poet could incant the truth about it.” Thus writes Walter P. Pitkin on one of the 540 pages of what he calls “A Short Introduction to the History of Human Stupidity." Aparently a much bigger is contemplated, the present one being a mere cocktail before the feast. Quite what the author hopes to accomplish by his researches is not clear. He can hardly expect all the fools in the world to buy his book and set about reforming themselves. Meanwhile, however, he is having fun and as a sense of humour seasons the undertaking it escapes qualifying for inclusion in its own index. Most people will probably consider that there is no great need for an introduction to human stupidity; it confronts us everywhere, even in the looking-glass. Mr Pitkin has certainly a wide field to draw on.

AGE FOR) RETIREMENT t i Mr Silas K. Hocking, now 85 years of age, published his first novel in 1878. Recently he made some observation upon the age for retirement, and expressed his faith in the youth of this generation. “The fact that we are none of us indispensable,” he said, “is perhaps the toughest cud the old people have to chew. A good many of them never manage to get their teeth into it. Hence when they are forced to retire from business or j}olitics or the Church they get no enjoyment out of it. . . . I am inclined i to think that more people give up (Work too late than too soon. Had they retired gracefully ten years age it. would have been to the advantage of all concerned. They have blocked j the way of younger men and detracted from their own reputation. There are old men mumbling sermons in the pulpit that are entirely out of date; painters working at pictures that no one will buy; writers burning the midnight oil in producing books | that few people will read; political fossils addressing empty benches in j the House of Commons, and all because they think—or try to make themselves think—that they are indispensable. If any reader of these lines should say it is quite time I got I out of the way myself, 1 can only reply that I quite agree with him or her, and I am getting out with the best speed I can command. And I don’t think I shall worry much as to what may happen to nations or civilisations.”