BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Otago Witness, Issue 4042, 1 September 1931, Page 65

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

In Mr Eric Gill’s book on “ Clothes ” there are eight illustrations. The book is printed in the “ Perpetua ” type designed by Air Gill.

“ Cinder Thursday,” a new collection of poems by Herbert E. Palmer, is announced for publication.

Mrs Mary Roberts Reinhart, the wellknown American author of “ The Bat,” and many other- popular novels and plays, is recovering from a serious operation. She has published over 30 books since 1908. She lives in Washington.

“ The British Year Book of International Law, 1931,” has been published.

Manchester has a travelling library in the form of an omnibus fitted with shelves. It will visit outlying districts periodically.

A memoir of Lord Cave is to be published. It has been written by Sir Charles Mallet. Lady Cave has added a chapter on his home life.

“ Red Beard,” by Maurice Hindus, is yet another realistic novel of the Russian Revolution as it affects the lives of the Russian peasants.

A new work by Professor H. A. Overstreet, entitled “ The Enduring Quest,” will shortly be published with an introduction by J. W. N. Sullivan.

The “ Commemorative Catalogue of the Exhibition of Italian Art held at the Royal Academy,” which is in preparation, will, it is hoped, be ready during the coming season.

Herr Erich Maria Remarque has again denied the rumour, current ever since “All Quiet On the Western Front” appeared, that his real name is Kramer, which is Remarque reversed. “ Remarque,” he says, “ has been the name of my family for hundreds of years.”

The third volume of the edition of Strindberg which is being published under the auspices of the Anglo-Swedish Literary Foundation is expected during the coming season. It contains four historical dramas.

Air Rudyard Kipling accepted the invitation of Lord Crewe and the executive committee of th e British Institute in Paris to become a member of the London committee.

Tennyson’s old house at Freshwater, Isle of Wight, is to be open to the public this summer. It contains many interesting relics of the poet.

An illustrated volume entitled “ Windmill Hill: Report of Excavations during 1928,” by Alexander Keiller, will soon appear. Extensive excavations have been in progress at Windmill Hill, near Devizes, for some years. The reports for the earlier years will be issued in a single volume shortly after the publication of the present book. There will later be a volume dealing with 1929.

The Book Society chose “Juan in America” for its members in March this year. Ever since publication it has remained a best-seller. The book can be guarantied to entertain, interest, surprise, and perhaps shock—a round trip through America with the great-great-great-grandson of Don Juan.

Mr Douglas Gordon, the authornaturalist who specialises in the study of the wild life of Devon and Cornwall, has written a book on “ Dartmoor in All Its Aloods,” which will delight all lovers of the west. It tells us of the history, customs, flora and fauna of this great moor in all the changing seasons of the year, and is illustrated with photographs and with reproductions of water colours by Lord Gorell.

The publication of Air John Cowper Powys’s interesting book, “In Defence of Sensuality,” last year raised both controversy and applause. But Mr Powys has never put more of his richness of feeling and language into any book in fuller measure than into his long novel, “Wolf Solent” (1929). That book has a place all its own amongst the major novels of the post-war years.

The authors of “ The American Leviathan,” in looking for a title for their long and fascinating study of American politics and government, have borrowed not inappropriately the name of Thomas Hobbes’ famous treatise. Th e

half-mythical giant, uniting in one person a whole multitude, which symbolised the seventeenth century state, looms still larger to-day.

Joseph Wood Krutch, the author of that penetrating book “ The Modern Temper,” published several years ago, has now written a valuable study of the work and the life of novelists, selecting for his purpose Boccaccio, Cervantes, Samuel Richardson, Stendhal, and Marcel Proust. In many respects the book represents a new way of writing about writers and their work, for it combines the interest of biography, both narrative and psychological, with the philosophical criticism of literature. V ¥ * “ Yehuda,” Aleyer Levin’s fictional presentation of Jewish community life in Palestine, has been selected in America by the Jewish Book of the Alonth Club, and is on the recommended list of the Hadassah, the Jewish Women’s Organisation for the Support of Colonisation in Palestine. Mr Levin has recently returned from two years spent in Palestine, where, as part of a Commune, he owns a young orange grove. He is at present engaged in the translation of a group of old Chassidic legends which he found in Central Europe, and in the presentation of marionette shows of his own making in New York City.