... . By R. T. C. Rolt. SHROPSHIRE. By Edmund Vale. County Book Series. Hale 15s. each.) Two worthy additions to this excellent series. ...

... . By Edmund de Rothschild. (Peter Davies 15s.) Naive recollections of a pre-war Grand Tour. ...

... . By George Orwell. Seeker and Warburg 10s.) FOR his world of fantasy and terror, Mr. Orwell has gone, as his title indicates, a mere thirty-five years into the future and pictured life under the totalitarianism that may have developed from the present dirigisme. Each of his- horrors is only a step forward from present-day beginnings. There is a compulsory telescreen in every room which not ...

... X By John Courtenay IN reviewing the year on the London stage, let me put the news in the first paragraph. Thus: the best productions in their various departments were Priestley's The Linden Tree, among straight plays; Oklahoma! as a musical; Born Yesterday and The Chiltern Hundreds as comedies; Saint Joan as a semi-classical revival; Tuppence Coloured as a revue; The Alchemist ...

... By C. A. Lejeune IT is an old and well-tried custom at this time of year for a critic to sit back and recall the films that have given him the greatest pleasure during the past twelve months of office. He then takes out a piece of paper and a pencil, and draws up, with many erasures, a list of The Ten Best Films of the Year, or My Favourite Dozen; after which he commits the list to typewriter, ...

... OUR BOOKSHELF Rupert Croft-Cooke ONE FINE DAY.-- The publishers claim for this novel that it is a little masterpiece, and for once it seems that the phrase is justified. Indeed, the danger is to avoid gushing. I could reel off a dozen epithets and stand by each of them-- it is ex quisite, moving and profound. It is a harder matter altogether to convey the inner life of the book, or even to ...

... THE CINEMA REVIEWS By C. A. Lejeune UNDER CAPRICORN. Considering the number and nature of the talents engaged for Under Capri corn, the producers of this big Technicolor romance were certainly justified in starting their work with a high degree of confi dence. Take a look at the assets, as they appear in the credit titles: screenplay by James Bridie from the novel by Helen Simpson; direction ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. MEMORY HOLD-THE- DOOR is the auto biography of a singu larly successful man. The fact that the author started life as John Buchan, one of the several children of a poor Scottish minister, and ended it as Lord Tvveedsmuir, Governor-General of Canada, proves this, but it does not tell, or even suggest, the whole story. Success and fulfilment often go hand in hand, but not ...

... -ffiocA BEVERLEY BAXTER. THIS is the Christmas Number of The Sketch, and the Editor, like the conductor of an orchestra, turns his mesmeric baton upon his contributors and calls for Yuletide music. It is true that Christmas is not yet here, but editors don't mind that kind of thing. Dickens, of course, was the great exponent of the Christmas spirit. If he had an assignment such as mine to-day, ...

... THE Winter Garden Theatre is not very far from the Aldwych. This farce will send many people back to those nights of the roaring 'twenties when Ben Travers, our most astute writer in the theatre's most difficult medium, would chivvy Lynn, Hare, Walls, and the rest through a few hours of moonstruck bliss. True, the present plot is something to do with the black market; true, alas, that Tom ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. SEEING that Mr. Max Relton's travels took place in French Indo-China, I almost automatically scanned the contents (a pity there is no index) for the magic word Angkor. I did not find it; but two-thirds of the way through the book I discovered that Mr. Relton had antici pated my enquiry. So far, therefore [he savsl as any reader is prepared to wade through this book solely ...

... J. C. Trewin A marriage has been arranged and shortly take place between Junius Sm seventh son of X. Y. Smith, merchant, Clementina Alexandra Buoyant (Babzy). of Panama, eldest daughter of William Buoyant and the late Buoyant, of Belgrave Square, London, S.W. Presumably notice, or something like it, will be the sequel to the events Bernard Shaw's latest-- but not necessarily his last-- play: ...