WHAT TIMARU IS READING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21362, 3 June 1939, Page 12

WHAT TIMARU IS READING

LIBRARY FAVOURITES CHINESE SURVEYS (Specially written for "The Timaru

Herald by

A. K. Elliot)

Readers are, I think, always interested to learn what other people ara reading, especially in other countries. The Wilson Bulletin for Librarians, for instance, gives a list of “Current Library Favourites.” A most interesting discovery is that, in fiction, New Zealand current favourites are practically the same as in the United States of America. “The Citadel” has been leading for months, with “The Yearling” by M. Rawlings in second place, while "Gene With the Wind” has dropped well down. The November list contained “The Citadel” (Cronin); "The Yearling” (Rawlings); "My Son, My Son!” (Spring); “Gone With the Wind” (Mitchell); “The Rains Came” (Bromfield); “The Mortal Storm” (Bottome); “Northwest Passage” (Roberts); "And Tell of Time” (Krey) “The Wall” (Rinehart); "Dark River” (Norcihoff and Hall) In the April list, “Rebecca” (Du Maurier), is now the leading book, followed by “All This and Heaven Too” (Field); "Disputed Passage” (Douglas) “My Son, My Son!” (Spring/; "The Citadel” (Cronin); “Gone With the Wind” (Mitchell); “The Yearling” (Raw-lings); “The Mortal Storm” (Bottome); "Song of Years” (Aidrich); “And Tell of Time” (Krey). The non-fiction was headed for quite some months by Lin Y-tang, author of “My Country and My People.” His new book, full of quaint philosophy, “The Importance of Living,” has met with a great reception, it being the type of book that most people, having read, want for their own shelves. “With Malice Toward Some” (Margaret Halsey) is now the leader, and this witty book has been widely read in England as well as American and New Zealand. “Madame Curie,” by her daughter, has also created much interest. This is a beautifully written i book, giving the reader much food for thought “How to Win Friends and • Influence People” (Dvle Carnegie), has | been an outstanding success in the States. Chinese Surveys Of perhaps more interest to New Zealanders are books of tcnlcal interest on China and Japan, and the most outstanding of these has been “Red Star Over China” (rtdgar Snow), and Madame Chiang Kai-shek’s own book, "China at the Cross-roads.” A New Z'-land Rhodes Scholar, James M. Bertram, has written "Crisis in China,” an account of his experiences with the forces in China. The latest book is by the well known author, Lady Hosie, who wrote that delightful book, “Portrait of a Chinese Lady.” Lady xxosie has been absent ten .years from China, and on her return, at six o'clock on a fair morning of 1936, she opened her porthole on to the hills and harbour of -long Kong, and the first thing to greet her was a rainbow spanning the sky. After her ten years’ absence, Lady Losie noticed great changes *- an awakening China. The whole book is of vital importance in the understanding of Chinese affairs. Two years la‘cr she writes: “So short a time it is—but two little years—since mid-summrr 1936, when I opened my port-hole on Hong Kona and beheld a span of rainbow. There is no need for me to write more of the things that have befallen China since mid-summer 1937—a year later. Nearly I did not write this book. While I wrote, I had temporarily to put the present hell out of my field of consciousness and cling to the solid rock of ascertained accomplishment and a saner past. How could I write the jests and joys of friendly days, when those friends of mine of whom I wrote were seeing then' cities destroyed, their people crushed, deed of wounds, dead of cold, dead of disease, dead of famine?” The House of Rothschild Those who have read “The Romance of the Rothschilds," and “Five Men of Frankfort,” ”111 be intqrested in ‘"lne Magnificent I.othschilds” (Cecil Roth), a net.' tool: ou these dominating figures. Most of these books have been on the founding of this dynasty, but it has been left to Mr Roth to describe those of the English house at the height of their fame. It was in the latter part of the Victorian reign, and later in the reign of Edward VII, that these three bic hers, “Nat,” Alfred and Leopold were so powerful—when Royalty called them by their first names, and bus-drivers wore their colours every Christmas. The author had lon ; delved into memoirs and records cf Victorian and Edwardian times, and while so doing became deeply : -terested in the great part played by the Rothschilds over several decades. Practically any collection of reminiscences of that age, be they written by actors, parliamentarians racehorse trainers or men about town, invariably mentions one or other of the brothers, Nat, Alf and Leo. This book makes the most interesting reading imaginable. The Mayer Amschel established five sons in five European capitals—this gave the Rothschilds an international standing. The son who came to England Nathan—was evidently the genius of the family, a financial giant, standing out prominently even among his clever brothers. After the first chapter dealing with the five Frankforters, the author passes on to the English house of Rothschild with their extravagant liberality, their fantastic cult of the beautiful, and with it all, their good faith and sense of responsibility to the land of their adoption.