... NOVELS IN VARYING MOODS -By Vernon Fane Civil Servants and the Blitz Miss Georgette Heyers Literary Diversion A Weighty 7\[ovel by Taylor Caldwell A 7\[ew Story by Barbara Goolden TWO things are certain about the author of DARKNESS FALLS FROM THE AIR (Collins. 8s. 6d.); he knows a great deal about the London blitzes, and he knows a great deal about the activities of temporary Civil Servants. ...

... A Long Poem of the Present War; Michael Graham's Angling Book; Alun Lewis's Character Sketches of Army Life The Story of a Fighter Pilot and the Log of a Merchant Airman A Romantic Novel of Heroic Dimensions; Claude Houghton's Book About a Book --By Vernon Fane A MONTH or two ago I heard the lovely, measured voice of Miss Diana Wynyard reading these lines over the radio: I thought with love, ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. LOVE and travel have often been combined, both in books and in life, but never, as far as I know, has the union taken quite the form it takes in Flight from a Lady. Mr. A. G. Macdonell's hero, Ralph (angry throughout the book, he is particularly put out the one time his name is disclosed), has been worsted in a love-affair, and adopts the time-honoured course of going ...

... . CRISIS, we are all aware by now, is a touchstone. It has no mercy on the bogus or second-rate-- not even on the faintly bogus, the for givable second-rate. It shows up much of what we are, and what we feel, and makes it look silly. But, in a different way, it shows up the things that count. Whatever keeps its value and attraction at such a moment must be pure metal. This is true in the world ...

... --By Vernon Fane Victorian Influence in the West Indies An Englishman from Tokyo A Character Study of Raleigh A Fine Record of the Royal A[avy The Batsford Centenary CASHEL, in Mr. James Hope Hennessy's WEST INDIAN SUMMER (Batsford. 12s. 6d.), was aide-de-camp to the Governor of Trinidad in 1939. From the boredoms of official life he turned to a library of books written by eminent visi tors to ...

... VARIETY for the BOOKSHELF Jacob Epstein's Autobiography: A Book for Wine-Lovers: Historical Miniatures Escapist, Light and Crime Fiction -By Vernon Fane JACOB EPSTEIN has always been a controversialist. Like most artists, he is sensitive to criticism; but, unlike those who are content to answer criticism in their own work, he has seldom missed an oppor tunity to take up the cudgels in print ...

... Philip Page on the Theatre The Latest London Theatrical Ventures Reviewed LET it be granted that brightness, brightness all the way, with nothing to relieve it, would form a rather grim revue. Let us admit the reasonableness of the demand for the inclusion in a show, admittedly out to amuse, of certain items of sentimental interest by way of contrast. do not even suggest that a revue in which ...

... SOMERSET COUNTRY HOUSE A Rural Selling for Miss Naomi Royde-Smilh's New Book -By Vernon Fane QUIETEST book of the week, and beating Mrs. Angela Thirkell's by a short head in that direction, is Miss Naomi Royde-Smith's URCHIN MOOR (Macmillan. 8s. 6d.). It is one of those stories generally, I notice, written by women, in which the principal character is a beautiful and very old house. The house ...

... BETWEEN this war and the last there was a flood of books all following roughly the same pattern of Court memoirs, chroniques mildly scandaleuses and nostalgic echoes of the days when a Grand Duke really was a Grand Duke. I had read so I many of them some of them excellent, some of them repeti tive, few of them altogether negligible since they gave at the worst some kind of picture of a life ...

... The Old School Tie of Massachusetts Portrait of an American Gentleman An Elizabethan Slave Ella M aillart's Seafaring Mercury on Campden Hill -By Vernon Fane IN the erroneous hope that it might afford them some protection in a possible libel action, some authors put a note at the beginning of a work of fiction to the effect that all the characters therein are imaginary, and have no connection ...

... LET THERE BE ANTHOLOGIES --By Vernon Fane Speak for England, the Ideal Reading Matter for the Soldier Bookworm NOTHING like a war to set publishers dreaming dreams of books to tell you all about it, books to make you forget it, books to explain how it hap pened, books to forecast what will happen; aided, in this war, of course, by the blessed black-out. A typical publishers' dream is the ...

... LET THE PEOPLE SING, Says J. B. Priestley -Reviewed by Vernon Fane Excellent Timing by the Author of The Good Companions Mr. Robert Henriques Looks at the British Officer MR. J. B. PRIESTLEY'S LET THE PEOPLE SING (Heinemann. 8s. 6d.) is an excellent piece of timing. In the world of entertainment (and this book belongs to none other) timing counts for so much that its successful application ...