Some Practical Books

Northern Advocate, 25 May 1938, Page 2

Some Practical Books

1. do not mean to suggest that Other books are no) practical, bin to indicate that vhe following selection from recent publications is likely to find a wide usefulness among everyday people, and to come more easily within their reach than books at heav-ily-loaded prices.

"■/% Short Constitutional History oi England,for .insfnnce. is published by Longman’s at ■ and it furnishes the man-in-thc-stroet and the woman-in-the-home with a readable outline of the history behind British institutions. There is no use boasting of cur Democracy if it means nothing to us beyond a “blab blab” word. Our attitude to the news presented in the daily paper is merely servile or sycophantic if we never exorcise our minds in discovering for ourselves the background of the politics and statesmanship by which we are governed. This boo): does introduce us to a knowledge of the why and the wherefore in our history, expansion and administration, and fits us to read the daily news, with a larger appreciation of its significant values, and some exorcise of critical faculties, which is tremendously to the good, surely. “Australia Up to Date.”

Another particularly useful and entertaining book is “Australia Up to Date,” by Cumberland Clark, published at 7/G by the Mitre Press. The cities of Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane arc, of course, comprehensively described. The industries of the Great Commonwealth are discussed. The problem of the Aborigines is stated. Then there are sections dealing with the animals and plants—the zoology and botany of a land which in both subjects has some of the world’s greatest curiosities. ‘ln a handy form, here is a book that we can profit by reading, for very few of us in New Zealand have the knowledge at command, which Mr Clark puts at our disposal, concerning a land which is a big share of the earth’s surface, and a people who are our nearest neighbours in the British comity of nations. , “Forty Fathoms Deep.”

For 6/-. Angus and Robertson, of Sydney, publish a book on the pearling industry as it operates today off the north-western const of Australia. Its title. “Forty Fathoms Deep,” suggests that it will probably conduct us on a journey of exploration that moves rapidly from thrill to thrill in stories of daring and peril. The suggestion is borne out on reading the book. What the search for oyster pearls involves is interesting enough in itself, but when the tides and sudden storms come into the picture, and the roaming monsters of the deep who may and do frequently attack the divers, are described in vivid encounters, the book becomes a section of the great human drama in which so many men earn their bread in defiance of conditions that compass them about with daily perils of sudden and violent death.