City Standard In Our Book Shops

Northern Advocate, 15 December 1937, Page 2

City Standard In Our Book Shops

TS/HETHER the people are making ’ a good use of their extended leisure and replenished funds, I cannot say, but some of them-—more than were expected, probably—‘are sending up to record figures the number of readers and borrowers of public libraries, and this in spite of numerous book ciubs that are doing amazing business on a membership subscription (for a year, or for life) as low as a shilling, and 3d a week for ordinary books, and 6d a week It seems that we may be, even now, for the more costly works, entering upon a revival of interest in reading, and the booksellers’ stocks strongly confirm the idea. Every shop is a volume of “great expectations.”

City Standards in the North.

A week ago I gave the bookshops in Auckland a hustling, but observing, once-over. Then I returned to Wha.ngarei to undertake for this column a more considered round of our own local shops, with an extended visit to other. Northland, centres as far as Kaitaia. The displays I saw were unusually good, better than I can ever remember to have seen before in 25 years. Three things impressed

Allowing that ours were smaller, Auckland had nothing on our Northland shops in the matter of (attractive

display. Secondly, in almost every case, books that were featured in Auckland were featured in our Northland displays also; as, for instance, “Desstiny Bay” and “The Lost Horizon,” just to the front in film versions; tno new cheap edition of San Michele, recent new books, and quite a few old favourites, by Cecil Roberts, Phillip Gibbs, Ethel Soileau, Nellie Scanjan, Dornford Yates, Grace Richmond, Georgette Heyer, Warwick Deeping, John Buchan, Donn Byrne, P. G Wodehouse, Leslie Charteris, and, to link- a bracing frosty winter with a jovial, carefree summer, John Galsworthy and Edgar Wallace.

Newest Series,

The newest series of books, Hodder and Stoughton’s Black Jackets, at 3/, New Zealand price, was featured in Auckland, and I found it here, including such appetising volumes as Earl Baldwin’s selected speeches under the title, “This Torch Of Freedom,” Buchan’s “The King’s Grace,” Frederic Hamilton’s “Vanished Pomps Of Yesterday”; Vice-Admiral Gordon Campbell’s exciting and proudly patriotic story, “My Mystery Ships,” and, what is probably one of the most restful, refreshing and awaking books of illuminating nature study, Lord Grey’s “The Charm Of Birds.” >

Thirdly, I noted this particularly, with very few exceptions, prices were

the same, in spite of the extra freight that. Northland booksellers must add to cost prices in Auckland or Wellington ports. Among the exceptions I had time to jot down were some a few pence higher in Whangaroi and some a few pence lower; enough of each to keep the general level even. Spirit of Ready Service.

I think it is worth saying another thing that struck me. What has caused it I don’t know, but there is a hew spirit of alertness in our shops. Zou are made conscious that you are welcome, that you can look round at your leisure, that the shop service is ready to help you recover an eluding title, identify a forgotten author, or track down the best works on a subject that interests you. This is the true spirit of bookselling. The hallmark of a book shop is the freedom to chat about authors, and taste —no, I think savour is better, to savour the books you give yourself the delight of selecting. And what may be said of the true spirit of book buying? Chiefly this, it is the spirit of Christmas. Buying

to give pleasure, to make home brighter and hearts lighter. Raskin imagined that shelves of books were courts of intellectual royalty where silent Kings 'and Queens of the earth wailed to give you audience and open for you their exhaustless treasures.

And how those treasures make the children’s eyes shine. “Alice In Wonderland,” “Peter Pan,” “A. Child’s Garden Of Verses.” It is not far from half a century since I read “Alice In Wonderland,” and lost myself in that topsy-turvy enchanted world. It was not till this very week when I happened to open an illustrated copy in one shop, and noticed a New Zealand scene, with a Maori girl standing on her head, that I was aware that New Zealand was mentioned in the adventures of Alice, I can’t name them, they are too many, but in every window and on every counter there were books for the bairns, of all sorts, at all prices. It is a sign of the tijnes. “A child hi their midst.” And the whole world is saner and happier when it takes time off to think about that child.

Sixteen Thousand » Year. And we adults. What is there for us? Well, there are about sixteen thousand books published in England and Scotland every year, and the whole of them arc not to be found in all the shops of New Zealand combined. So you can easily ask for a book that a shop can-

not supply. But, believe me, what they have

got and what they can supply is so varied, so well and widely selected that you need not go away disappointed. There is as good (or better) fish in the literary sea as ever came out of it, and it is worth while, sometimes, like Jurgen, “to try anything once.” If you want to play safe there are always the classics. A classic is a

book with some deep human quality about it that appeals with undying force to succeeding generations of readers. They are not willing that it should die. Its popularity may diminish in one period and revive in another. But it is never forgotten, and never entirely, a spent force. So, though I did not note much by Dickens, and less by Thackeray and Scott, they were to be had. “They are not so much in demand just now,” and they are not therefore so conspicuously stocked. Stevenson is prominent, however, with “Treasure Island” and “Kidnapped,” not forgetting his delightful essays, “Virginibusi Pueresque.” Shod With Laughter.

W. W. Jacobs, with his salty tang of the sea is still among the humourists who rip the heavy lead off our shoes and send us on our way re-shod with laughter, though, of course, like good old Mark Twain, he has to see younger men preferred before him for a humour that marches with the age in Herbert Jenkins and the “Bindle” books. P. G. Wodehouse and “Jeeves,” or A. P. Herbert.

I noted “Erewhon” in several shops and was surprised to learn that it was not generally known and asked for, though its cheap issue in the Penguin books had kindled new in-

terest. The scenes of“‘Erewhom” are not unknown to those who hail from the Canterbury Plains, though, if you spoil the title backwards you know

it is all a brilliant piece of humorous satire by one of the most brilliant writers of the nineteenth century, though no such place was, or ever could be—more’s the pity. The author, Samuel Butler, by the way, is the secret mine from which Bernard Shaw dug out and polished some of his richest ore. When Butler got back to his* Canterbury homestead, 'after a day on the farm, and played his piano for hour’s on end, some of the farm hands thought he was a bit mad. As all our great men have been 'a bit mad, this should add piquant relish to his reading.

Priestly’s Books in Demand.

“Priestly’s books are in demand,” I was told, “but the demand has lacked staying power.” This did not surprise me. A. E. W. Mason sustains a more regular and vigorous pulse of literary appeal as does John Buchan with a score of books to his name, and But I must stop somewhere. My space must be exhausted, yet I’ve 23 books yet unmentioned which I hoped to name at least.

Let me finish with two. A Pelican book for 1/, Vol. 1 of Elio Halevy’s “History Of The English People.” This is not ordinary history. It is English history written by a Frenchman, and so fresh In its treatment, so obviously authoritative in its profound insight and research, and so absorbingly interesting in the new light it sheds on our island race, that no one will read the first chapter without wanting to go on to the end —and then some more.

We all think wc know why England won the Battle of Trafalgar. But what we think and what tins book proves are quite different, and completely astonishing. It is a refresher course in the historical things, that matter.

One other book that I saw, and coveted. and hope yet to have for my own, was the most beautiful of edition of Shakespeare I have ever touched, tasted, or handled—grained leather in rich blue. But the clear type and the Illustrations! The last word in beautiful book production, The pictures by famous artists of the Royal Academy, several in gorgeously rich colour, depict scenes in the

plays. Such a book I did not see in Auckland, and such a book to present to someone or to receive from someone is a life gift, something that will go all the way with the youngest of us. and though it may get shabby in long time of years it can never wholly cease to be a gift of dignity and distinction.

I conclude with an adaptation of a famous Eastern proverb: “If you have two loaves, sell one and buy—a book !