... A SATIRICAL novel by a witty American woman is one of this week's best dis coveries. WE HAPPY FEW (Macdonald. 9s. 6d.) has been high on the best-seller lists in its own country for some time, but, as you know, that is no guarantee that a book will be equally popular over here. In this case, I think it has a fair chance of being extremely successful, and this in spite of the wholly and ...

... Mr. Eric Gillett has edited Miss Ham's diary, which covers a period from 1783 to 1820, her childhood in Dorset, and her young womanhood there and in Ireland, where she lived for six years and acquired quite an Irish accent and became accustomed to Irish manners. So good were these last, particularly among the ALTHOUGH written in novel form, ISLAND IN THE SKY (Michael Joseph. 8s. 6d.) is ...

... I DON'T see why the publishers should feel it necessary to apologise for the slight Ameri can bias of Captain Harry Butcher's THREE YEARS WITH EISENHOWER (Heinemann. 21s.). Captain Butcher was General Eisenhower's naval aide during the time he was in supreme command of the greatest military operation in the world's history. Being the great man he is, General Eisenhower quickly realised that ...

... ACCORDING to his dedica tion, Mr. Cyril Connolly appears to have been unable to get an English publisher to take THE ROCK POOL (Hamish Hamilton. 8s. 6d.) when it was written in 1935. It was published in Paris in 1936 by a sportsman called lack Kahane, who waged a lonely guerilla war against English prudery (and who found my book so little salacious that he used to tell me it was a disgrace to ...

... MR. FRANCIS WILLIAMS' PRESS, PARLIAMENT AND PEOPLE (Heinemann. 8s. 6d.) is a book on a subject which is under active discus sion in Government circles at the present moment. In his position as Controller of News and Censorship at the Ministry of Information, and sub sequently as Chief Press Officer to the British Delegation at San Francisco, Mr. Williams is in a unique position to take his ...

... Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE LAST OF SUMMER (Phœnix).-- Some of the most successful plays have been based on successful novels, but I doubt whether this will be one of them. It has its charm, as well as a fairly interesting story about a family in Eire dominated by a terrifying mother and disturbed by the arrival of a pretty young French cousin, who falls in love with one of the sons and he with ...

... THE NAVY THROUGH THE AGES An Erudite Survey of Our Senior Service Britain's sea power laid the foundations of her Empire and it has saved Britain from every tyrant who has threatened the island from the days of Philip of Spain to those of Adolf Hitler; but the vast territorial gains of the acquisitive past, and the great battles which ensured our survival, only engage incidentally the ...

... The Stage: Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE THE KINGMAKER (St. James's).-- Nearly four hours is a bit long for a history lesson, for that is what this beautifully-produced play really amounts to. But the fifteenth century was an inter esting period, and even war seems to have been picturesque in those days, though the politics were as sordid as we ourselves know them. The Earl of Warwick did his king- ...

... MISS MARY MITCHELL'S new novel is a long, long step away from A Warning to Wantons; a step towards the sober, revealing light of the everyday. There is little room for gaiety in the theme the writer has chosen, and the emphasis is decisively on facts rather than fancies. Neverthe less, THE PILGRIMAGE OF MRS. DESTINN (Methuen. 9s. 6d.) is very far from being a dull book. It may not have the ...

... STARTLING, original, pos sibly even shocking to a number of readers, is Mr. Robert Graves' KING JESUS (Cassell. 12s. 6d.). In this long book, which I sometimes felt as I read it was overburdened with the detail that may prove erudition, the author develops a theory that Jesus was born of an earthly father and mother, and that He was the temporal heir to Herod's kingdom. The book is written in ...

... WAGHORN'S WAY The Pioneer of the Overland Mail As late as the third decade of the nineteenth century the conveyance of mail between London and Bombay was a business of fantastic difficulty. Between Bombay and Suez the steamers were hopelessly inadequate, and had to be crammed even to the Saloon with coal to ensure that they would get the 1,710 miles into Aden, the longest leg of the journey. ...

... IN that distant Elizabethan world thronged by shadowy figures bearing great names, Christopher Marlowe is the radiant one, 'the Muses' darling' in a contemporary's praise; and it is those words that Mr. Charles Norman has chosen for the title of his charm ing and erudite biography. The Muses' Darling (Falcon Press. 12s. 6d.) is a valuable study, not only because it traces the poet's life in ...