... \1 v Reviewed by Alan Seymour Husbands Can't Help It, by Eliot Crawshay- Williams (John Long, Ss. 6d.), is grand fun. Mr. Crawshay-Williams has an infectiously light-hearted out- look on life and writes so airily on guilty liasons that for the once, at least, the reader no matter who he or she may be accepts them completely as, of course, the usual thing. In this breezy tale, Charles, one of ...

... T he Book of the Mont h No Arms No Armour, by R. D. Q. Henriques (Nicholson Watson, 8s. 6d.) IF ever a book was distinguished by an exquisite sincerity, that book is No Arms No Armour. It is a first novel, but a first novel of such outstanding character and of such consummate artistry that it carried off the £3,000 prize in the All Nations Prize Novel Competition. The fact that it has as ...

... . 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 ...

... THE CINEMA By JAMES AGATE Corrosive Criticism WHAT is there so particularly fascinating about Swiss Cottage that the fog clings to it with a faithfulness above all other faithfulnesses? I am told that during parts of the Christmas holiday all that part of Hampstead which lies above Swiss Cottage was clear as a bell, while even in Camden Town one could see one's hand before one's face. But the ...

... Films of the Day History by Guitry George Campbell This is ordinarily the season when film producers, with a smile of ineffable benevolence, unload all the junk in their cellars, and eager aunts drag tolerant nephews to see it. Things are different this year. Of seven new films, only one is rubbish. The rest range all the way from Sacha Guitry's witty improvisations on the theme of royal ...

... \^7H1TAKER S Almanack (published at VV 12, Warwick Lane, E.C.4 12s. 6 d. [leather], 7 s. and 3s. 6 d. [abridged]) is one of the few books of reference that almost any one can pick up any time and find something not only that they did not know but that they would like to know. It takes the world as its matter and presents it to you concisely taped in 1130 pages. As well as favourite and useful ...

... The ninth edition of this invaluable book of reference has at last appeared, compiled and edited as usual by John Parker, pub lished as usual by Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., Parker Street, Kingsway, at 30s. Who 's Who in the Theatre is, of course, far more than a collection of biographies of everyone connected with the stage it con tains a directory to London Playbills, 1936-9 the late J. M. ...

... IT is difficult to say anything new about Who 's Who, in itself a criterion of fame. There is, in fact, nothing new to say, except that among the 40,000 factual auto biographies included, 1000 are newcomers and the rest have re-read and brought up to date their own notices. The scope of this remarkable book is -gradually widening to include not only these islands but the world and the state of ...

... taebrett's Peerage, Baronetage, i-J Knightage and Companionage (Dean and Sons, Ltd., 41-43, Ludgate Hill 105 s.) includes events in the families of its title up to December of last year a remark able achievement, in view of the war. A double pagination of over 3000 pages con tains as usual all family details of our nobility and chivalry, including 540 new honours. Subjects referred to in the ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. IF you want to see the best new acting perform ance in town, you must put up with a very grim prison film, and go to see James Cagney in EACH DAWN I DIE, at the Warner Theatre. The story is just another ex posure of racketeer ing, and the brutal methods of discipline practised in the past tense in certain American prisons. An honest reporter, who gets too near to the ...

... The Bystander Bookshelf Innocence and Villainy V. S. Pritchett THERE is a growing form of child exploitation which I hope will die of the fury raised among rival parents. I mean the habit, which novelists are getting, of pushing out wistful works of literary charm about their own children. I thought it quite enough when Mr. Nichols insisted on sharing his cottage with us; now it has gone ...

... , Ltd., 186, Strand, W.C.2, produce their usual trio of in dispensable tomes recording a vast amount of information. The Post Office London Directory (60s.) contains a particularly useful feature namely, the wartime addresses of business firms that have temporarily moved their offices either wholly or partly out of I^ondon. The renaming of streets by the L.C.C. has again caused a vast number ...