... PAGEANTRY AT OLYMPIA On December 17 the twenty-second season of Bertram Mills's Circus opened at Olympia. From the grand opening parade to the finale there is presented a spectacular variety of animal, aerial, tumbling, and clowning acts with such speed that the three hours are never allowed to drag. Before and after the shows, and during the interval, there is a fun-fair adjoining the ...

... The Borgia Testament 14 The Wisdom of Dr. Johnson 44 Portrait of a House 44 Devil's Reckoning: Elizabeth Botven s NIGEL BALCHIN is, as a novelist, admirable-- not least admirable for his way of being for ever upon the move. Reputation came to him early, but he has not been content to take out a patent on, simply, one kind of success: he continues to experiment, to break new ground. He came out ...

... The Book of the Golden Retriever, by W. M. Charlesworth Fletcher and Son, Norwich). No one has had longer experience of the golden retriever than Mrs. Charlesworth, and she has given us an excellent monograph on the breed. It is practical and informa tive throughout, and contains much helpful advice on breeding to type. The chapter on kennels and house training is very useful, as is that on ...

... Part-Time Farmer, by C. N. j Barclay (Sijton Praed, Ltd. 15s.). I This little book will encourage a I lot of people to try to make their I country dreams a reality, for the I author is far too optimistic. He I deals only with smallholdings, not I farms, and though there is much of ,il good sense we doubt if a large jj garden and an acre of orchard will make a net profit of £200 a year, even ...

... Whitehall 1212, by Richard I Harrison (Jarrolds 15 s.). Crime I from a different angle. Here is a j history of London's police force I and an account of the work which falls to the City Police, Port of I London Authority, Railway, :fl B.O.A.C. police, including a vivid I description of the Yard as nerve- I centre for detection of crime. From B organisation the author turns to I the practical ...

... : Dr. Gyril D. Darlington, F.R.S., has edited the whole of the John Innes Leaflets issued by the Institution to date, including the latest No. 6 on seed production. The interest shown in composts, soil sterilisation, the fertility rules in fruit planting and other subjects studied by horticulturalists is shown by the fact that 60,000 copies of the five leaflets were sold during the war. This ...

... . By L. Luard. (Nicholson and Watson 15s.) A good miscellany of Commander Luard's writings over many years about little ships. BOOKS IN BRIEF ...

... WHEN a novel is as good as Norman Collins's London Belongs to Me, probably the safest way of bringing it to the screen is to tick as closely as possible to the author's blue prints. Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, who Produced the new British film at the Leicester square, have done just this. To be sure, Mr. Collins saw his dramatis persona: om a rather longer viewpoint, and in more ...

... Rupert Croft-Cooke TALKING OF DICK WHITTINGTON. --Those enviable people whom I hear tracing the identity of some person or object from the answers to the first six of Twenty Questions, seem satisfied with the classification Fact or Fiction. The book trade is more wary and speaks of all books which are not actually and obviously novels by the loose term Non-Fiction. All my four books this ...

... . . By Rom Landau. (Macdonald ys. 6d.) (Macdonald ys. 6d.) Neat short stones by a practised hand. ...

... . By E. M. Almedingen. (the Bodley Head; 8s. 6d.) A sequel to the author's autobiography To-morrow Will Come. It is all rather solemn and self-conscious, as befits the work of someone who was brought up in Russia, escaped to Rome in the 1920's, and eventually reached England, which country, her publishers say, she had always felt to be her spiritual home. What is a' spiritual home ...

... PHON ETICAL FANCIES A Glasgow Publisher Has Ambitious Plans for the English Language From Scotland comes another villainous attack upon the English language, or, alternatively, another noble attempt to deal with the barbarities of our spelling. It all depends how you feel about phonetics. Mr. Peter D. Ridge- Beedle, a Glasgow publisher, has decided that the time has come to modify the English ...