POPULAR PLOTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12748, 18 September 1919, Page 6

POPULAR PLOTS.

THE CANYON BACKGROUND. CHRISTCHURCH AND NOVELS. Taste in fiction varies with the -seasons. To-day the ..American adventure story enjoys a striking popularity in Christchurch, and for tales of lumber camps, mining settlements and ranch round-ups there i.s an ever-increasing demand at the Public Library. On the early workers’ car as it speeds into the Square it is becoming quite usual to see girls bending with that “ don’t-disturb-me ” air over novels by such writers as Zane Grey, 11. Culluni, Rex |*? a chi Peter Kyne, Jackson, Gregory H. Oxen and Ralph Connor. Though Buffalo Bill seems to have thrown his lariat for the last time, redskins and cowboys are just as much to the fore on the printed page as in. the picture houses. A writer like Jane Grey usually starts off with a little affair on a roof garden in old New ' ork, jazz bands, champagne corks, decolletto blouses and all that sort of thing. A brief interlude and you are away up in a place of crags and canyons, the roof of the world, the back of beyond, the ragged edge of desolation. The heroine, is staring into the kme, linking of the bad old times when there was always plenty of hot water for tbe morning bath and Manhattan -cocktails came straight from the ice-chest- Following that a gang of greasers hits the trail that leads to free beef and in the ensuing 'rush almost everyone is shot up, dehorsed or kidnapped. The last round sees the foreman of Double X Ranch swing the ‘ now-fchorouglily-tarnecl ” heroine into the saddle before him, roll a cigarette with his free hand, and depart for the nearest: Padre at an easy lope. Sometimes Rex Beach uses similar ingredients, except that the most exciting incidents of his shows are staged under the swinging oil lamps of rough saloons. Ralph Connor, who went to the war as chaplain to a Canadian battalion, still excels in pictures of sky pilots. Peter Kyne lately switched from a senes of snappy sea stories to a long and rather wearisome novel about a forest, a pioneer and a sawmill. THE NEW MR WELLS. Next in order of popularity come John Buchan. Berta Ruck, Compton Elinor Glyn, Ruby Ayres. K. Norris, Mary Walter, Mrs H. Ward, Ethel Hell, H. B. Wright, Joan Sutherland, Cosmo Hamilton, Baroness Orczy, Countess Arnheim and H. G, Vi ells. Since Mr "Wells departed from his old custom of narrating the surP ri f ln g adventures of shop assistants and apprentice chemists and began to tackle almost every subject under tho sun, clamp the resultant essays together and call the whole a novel, his sales have not been on the upward uj 6 ’ "Wells makes yon think too nard. There’s been a war on and I want a spell,” was a remark heard nt r> bookshop the other day. John Buchan, who has turned out one of the best histories of the war so far available, from inadequate data, is a great favourite both in Britain and America. Of modern fiction it is safe to say that by far the most popular books are “Mr Standfast,” by John' Buchan, “Sylvia Scarlet,” bv Compton Mackenzie; “Valley of the Giants,” by Peter Kyne; “Butterfly Man,” bv Max Oemler ; and “ The Price of Things, by Elinor Glyn. Berta Ruck’s navels, witn their glowing covers, are easily the most prominent exhibits on b°okstali. A new form of novel is Blind Alley,” by W. L- George, who has paid Wells the tribute of imitain raan.v of his mannerisms. “ Blind Alley ” is less a novel than an outpouring of opinion damned by patriotism during the four years of the war. TELEGRAMS FROM KITCHENER. There is a great demand in Christchurch for books of biography, history and travel,, of which the library has one of the best collections of any public library in New Zealand, there bemg over / 000 volumes of these works in the circulating department, and now volumes are constantly arriving from America and England. Of the recent publications, Viscount JeUicoe's muon discussed book, “The Grand 1 leet, has been in big demand, while another outstanding war book is Viscount French’s “ 1914,” an authority tive story of those fearful and wonderful days on the western front. There m littie demand now for the earlier published works dealing with the war. Urgent Telegrams from Lord Kitchener hitherto confidential, are the great features of “1914,” the publication of which m the early portion of the year caused consternation in certam circles at Home. According to one English critic, where the public had expected a modest story from a they Were snrpr sed to find that Lord French’s attitude was, consciously or unconsciously defensive. However, as an historical narrative “ 1914 ” so far no riSs