THE BOOKMAN’S CORNER

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 3, Issue 12, 1 June 1925, Page 69

THE BOOKMAN’S CORNER

Q VERSEAS the Cross Word Puzzle craze is assuming gigantic proportions. Even in phlegmatic England the craze is certainly creating a stir, though the U.S.A. seems to be the real home of this fascinating pastime. From a late American journal we learn that so great is the demand for books of reference, phrase books, etc., to help in solving the übiquitious Gross Word that the Public Libraries are installing special Reference Book Departments for the convenience of the multitude of Cross Worders who come in such numbers as to literally swamp the usual library facilities. Incidentally we may remark that publishers of puzzle books and works of reference are reaping a golden harvest. That cross wording stimulates the imagination and has a certain educational value certainly commend it to a big majority of people. The pastime seems to be rapidly gaining favour in this country also, and the demand for books is growing. We have recently received a number of excellent puzzle books and must confess that we have in no small measure enjoyed ourselves in attempting to solve some of these engrossing enigmas. Published by Hodder and Stoughton are an excellent series of books, the first, second, third and fourth Cross Word Puzzle Books, each containing about thirty puzzles, selling in New Zealand at 3/6. Another very good book is one entitled “The Shilling Cross Word Puzzle Book” with about the same number of puzzles, retailing here at the published price. The Evening News Prize Cross Word Book at 2/6 should provide many hours of amusement to the enthusiast. Included in our parcel were a cheaper series entitled ‘The Best Way Cross Word Books,” embracing about six different books and really excellent value at 9d each. If you have the Cross Word fever you can do no better than purchase a number of the above. Our copies through Messrs. Whitcombe and Tombs Limited. "W/E have received a slim volume entitled “Esoteric Healing,” the author of which is E. S. Dukes. Mr. Dukes practiced for many years as a registered Doctor, but came to the conclusion that modern medicine and surgery as practiced by the western nations is essentially wrong in foundations and therefore disappointing in results. He maintains that much harm and suffering is caused through the ignorance and lack of knowledge of present-day medical practitioners. He believes that the Eastern nations have much to teach us, and that in many things we can profitably learn from them. For many years resident in the East Mr. Dukes claims to have made a special study of Eastern philosophy as applied to medicine and healing, and the book deals in the main with the special system of healing (Esoteric Healing) evolved from his observation of Eastern practice. Whether we agree with the author or no does not matter here, but those who are interested will no doubt derive some

good in perusing this volume. Our copy comes through Messrs. Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. fjpHERE has just been published a very interesting little view book entitled “The City of Auckland.” It contains some fifty excellent pictures and a really fine panorama of Rernucra taken from One Tree Hill. The format is neat and in every way the book is just the sort of illustrated view book that friends overseas or in other parts of New Zealand will appreciate. The price is 2/-. The publishers are Messrs. Whitcombe and Tombs Limited. (§ome Novels T'HE Thundering Herd,” by Zane ' Grey. Powerful, thrilling, an unsurpassed picture of the old west, “The Thundering Herd” is typical of this great American writer at his best. And what a picture it is! Mile upon mile of prairie covered by great buffalo herds; reckless, hardriding plainsmen, buffalo hunters, Indians, banditsthe whole colourful epoch of the pioneer, in a story which centres in the description of the thundering herds of buffalo. In this breathless tale of bravery and battle, of white man’s courage and red man’s daring, Zane Grey has written one of his finest novels. From Whitcombe and Tombs Limited. “T IFE Erica,” by Gilbert Frankau. “Life—and Erica” is undoubtedly the most human novel which Gilbert Frankau has so far written. But it is something more than this. It is an analysis, pitiless yet accurate, of the modern spirit in modern womanhood. Most readers will quarrel with it, and a few will positively hate it, but the majority will agree that Mr. Frankau has accomplished the task which he set himself. The fact that this book ends on a strong religious motive will not come as a surprise to those who have studied this author’s other works as they deserve to be studied —thoroughly. From Whitcombe and Tombs Limited. "THE Honorable Miss Cherry Honorable Miss Cherry Blossom,” by Luellen Teters Bussenius. A young American falls in love with a pictureand the picture comes to life Through the crowded streets of Tokio, the factory where the girls feed mulberry leaves to the silk worms, the parks where the girls of the Yoshiwara walk in gay kimonos, the inn for outcasts with its gambling den underneath the trap door, the curio shop hung with coloured lanterns, the garden of the Ambassador’s house aflame with flowers the story moves with breathless rapidity of an old-fashioned happy ending. A story as exciting as a ride on a scenic railway, a story charming as a fairy tale, beautiful as a Japanese print. From Whitcombe and Tombs Limited.

“ r jPHE Valley of Adventure,” by 1 G. W. Ogden. In the lush-green valley of adventure, Mr. Ogden stages a wholly intriguing drama, centering around the Mission House of San Fernando Rey. Into the valley wanders the American wayfarer, John Miller, whose life becomes forfeit under an ancient and oppressive Spanish decree that sets penalty of death upon foreigners who enter Alta California. Mr. Ogden extracts the last ounce of drama and suspense out of the contest between the soldiers and the priests, who have given sanctuary to John Miller, and varies a most fragrant love interest with pages of tingling excitement. —From Whitcombe and Tombs Limited. “gELWOOD of Sleepy Cat,” by Frank H. Spearman. One can say, without taking the name of Bret Harte in vain, that this is the sort of story Bret Harte might have written if he had been writing to-day instead of forty years ago—a story of life in camp, on the Overland trail and in a primitive, rapidly-growing town in the far West. Men and women of diverse character and of little or no character at all come together out of civilisation into that place where they are largely a law unto themselves —until the sheriff intervenes — and their different stories, and the main story in which they all become more or less involved grow upon the reader with an intensely human and compelling interest. There is humour and pathos, villainy and rough good-heartedness, and a freshness of outlook and treatment in “Selwood of Sleepy Cat” that make delightful as well as exciting reading. The rugged, kindly Dr. Carpy; the shrewd, cautious McAlpin ; “smooth” Dave Tracy; the rascally Starbuck and his gang of gamblers; the tragic romance of Starbuck and Mag Hyde; the happier but chequered love affair of Selwood and the charming, frankly innocent Christie Fyler-—these are woven into a tale as stirring and many-coloured and alive with incident as any that has ever come out of the West. —From Whitcombe and Tombs, Limited. “ M ARTIN Arrowsmith,” by Sinclair Lewis. Mr. Sinclair Lewis’ new novel may be said to deal with the reverse aspect of the human comedy. “Main Street” and “Babbitt” fundamentally were about people who built up a world of comfortable illusion which they super-imposed upon the world of harsh reality, and about their desperate opposition to any rending of that illusory world. “Martin Arrowsmith” on the contrary is about a man driven by an inner urge to be ever seeking reality and thwarted in his search, not only by the people around him who cling to illusion, but —and this is perhaps the more pathetic—by the defects of his own character. The scene is American and in the present, but the striving so vividly narrated has been going on all over the world from time immemorial and is the origin of all

human advance. The most ambitious work Mr. Lewis so far has attemptFrom Whitcombe and Tombs Limited. ‘CWORD of Scarlet,” by Charles ' J. Mansford. The author of this novel of high romance and adventure contributed some years ago a series of stories to the Strand Magazine, which were subsequently published by Messrs. Newnes in their popular Sherlock Holmes’ series. Turning his attention to books for boys chiefly, Mr. Mansford has written several which have achieved considerable popularity, his “Bully, Fag and Hero” running through a considerable number of large editions, and being still an excellent seller. In “Sword of Scarlet” the author returns to his love for romance and adventure, producing a book that deals with the slave-dealing days of Bristol, known under its old name of Brightstowe. The story carries us to Cuba and to the West Indies, where new ground is broken, and a graphic and correct historical description of Cuba under Spanish Dons is given, the island itself being well-known to the author. The chief male character, John Simple, tells us himself that he is six feet four in height, “as measured on the edge of Goatcher’s door, with heels well pressed to the ground.” He is, indeed, a Somerset presentiment of Blackmore’s immortal Jan Ridd, and Mr. Mansford has evidently caught the atmosphere in which that hero lived. He is, indeed, a man of might, hedger and ditcher by day, and a smuggler of great ability by night, who gets ultimately transported to Cuba. His striking adventures, his hatred of all that was Spanish, his strange passion for the English maiden who became Donna Sara Castillo, and the growth in his heart of a great love ultimately for Juanita, the slave girl, make absorbing reading, as does his escape with the latter after she has, unknown to him, murdered the Don who robbed him of his first love. Through all the pages of this romance there runs the story of a mystic sword, which passes from the Don of Spain to the Englishman and back again, bringing good or ill luck as it is held or lost. We get a good glimpse of the British bucaneer of the time, while Sir Harry Morgan himself even plays a part in John Simple’s exciting career. The manner in which woman was held as a mere chattel is well brought out, and Juanita’s life and love story is most illuminating and suggestive. The book is, indeed, a very careful study of the time of King Charles 1., and, as a critic in the Spectator has previously observed, Mr. Mansford invariably writes as a scholar. The book is good English literature, and has many fine passages in it showing that Mr, Mansford knows and appreciates our best English novelists’ work. Viewing life from a new angle, the novel is likely to arouse considerable attention and discussion. Through Whitcombe and Tombs Limited.