... \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 ...

... bOOKS: Reviewed by Trevor Allen WATCHMAN, what of the night? Alternatively: Publisher, what are you doing to lighten our blackout evenings? If a nation's wartime morale may be judged to some extent by the books issuing from its presses, then the batch in front of me implies that all's well with the home front. They give cause for pride they show that we remain staunch to our heritage. Is ...

... My Royal Past, by Baroness von Biilop as told to Cecil Beaton (B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 21s.) STOICALLY and long have we suffered the memoirs of Teutonic ladies with royal pasts. Mr. Cecil Beaton has parodied them deliriously, with just the right flavour of satire, in a fragrant skit, a souffle of wit and malice. The baroness I can recall, when three and a half years old, dressed in broderie ...

... Books: Reviewed by T revor Allen Gentlemen, the ladies! is the literary toast this month. They have been impressively busy. Not lightly would I undertake Miss Erica Beal's immense documentary industry in making Royal Cavalcade (Stanley Paul; 16s.). It spans nearly a century, from Queen Victoria's Coro nation to the post-war years; presents ample portraits of the lives and times of Vicky, ...

... Gilbert Frankau's Self-Portrait A Novel of His Own Life. Hutchinson ios. 6 d.) 'PHIS is the story of Mr. Frankau's life up to the age of fifty-five, and much more than his own modest claim for it a tale that may be altogether out of date, just the dry bones of one insignificant individual's totally unimportant struggles for solvency and happiness. As a book it is not perfect. In places it ...

... : Reviewed by Trevor Allen THIS month we can close down for a moment on memories of the sickening bombing and machine- gunning of Spaniards, Poles, Finns and North Sea trawler and lightship men, and salute air folk of another breed. Miss Amelia Earhart was a lovable skyways girl first woman to fly the Atlantic, solo pilot from Mexico City to New York, Honolulu to New York. Over two years ago ...

... : Reviewed by Trevor Allen I ASKED a friend: What kind of books do you read these days? Escapist, he said. Anything tnat takes the mind off black-outs and air raids and a Europe driven back to barbarism by so-called rulers who behave like a pack ot petty, squabbling, bullying schoolboys, and make life a hell. There are many like him and they need not go hungry. Lady Eleanor Smith's love ...

... A Lion in the Garden. By G. B. Stern. (Cassell 8s. 3d.) yOU see, it was this way Norman Pascoe, odd-job man who looked after boats Up-Thames, met in his garden an escaped show-lion about as man-eating as a Hollywood one. He said Pretty puss when he heard it purring behind him, then Good girlie, good girlie, and later to his wife and ma-in-law I 've put a lion in the kitchen, you 'd better ...

... : Reviewed by Trevor Allen DURING these crisis years we have been served remarkably well by roving correspondents on the Trouble Fronts. Negley Farson, Vincent Sheean, John Gunther, Douglas Reed, Philip Jordan, Pierre van Paasen have given us the first-hand reactions of reasoning minds to movements of violent unreason in a world turned topsy-turvy. Mr. Ferdinand Tuohy lines up with that ...

... Technique for Beauty. By fane Gordon. (Faber 10s. 6 d.) THIS is a book to make mere man gasp: 100,000 words, 460 pages, the product of a year's research into no fewer than eighty- eight text-books by world-famous specialists, and all so that every day in every way woman may grow lovelier and lovelier. scientific, classified advice about every kind of beauty treatment, inner and outer, and ...

... American women have gone mad rough-house beauty treatments. Avenue beauties arc being stood elegant coiffures, for standing head is said to clear the comover Fifth on their on the plexion smooth out wrinkles. rhev are being r slapped with coarse hair mitts to make the skin fine, and pummelled until the tears start to their eyes, to pep up sluggish circu lations. Then they are sent home with ...