... Books: Reviewed by Trevor Allen MR. COLLIN BROOKS, editor of Truth, croons no lullaby over the 1930's decade. It came in like a ravening wolf, and went out like a roaring lion. It began in world economic chaos, and ended with the world at war, he writes in Devil's Decade (MacDonald, 15s.), focusing the period mainly through pen-portraits of its monarchs, statesmen, politicians, financiers, ...

... , STEFAN ZWEIG, ace biographer of Marie Antoinette s and Mary Stuart, took his life in Brazil, the refugee secretary whom he had married dying with him a tragic s ending to an illustrious career. In Stefan Zweig (W. H. Allen, 12s. 6d.) his first wife, Friderike, tells the S story of their romantic love when she was already a wife and mother, marriage and their Salzburg mountain home where he ...

... THE first two volumes of Sir Osbert Sitwell's auto biography have not only re ceived almost unanimous praise from the critics, but have earned him an award for the most distinguished work of the year. Die third volume, Great Morning (Macmillan, 15s.), has, therefore, to be measured bv a very high standard, and one may as well say at once that it is as good as, if not better than, its ...

... No one enjoys a well-arranged accom paniment better than I do, but there is a time and place for everything, and I feel that the accompaniment to Monsieur Ernest a Riussi, good though it may be as an exhibition of orchestral pyrotechnics, is inartistic and incorrect as a setting for the singing of Edith Piaf. The accompaniment to her second song, Le Geste, is in slightly better taste, but I am ...

... (Mr t$uL Happy with Either St. James's J Anthony Cook man with Tom Titt CHARLES LAMB cheerfully damned posterity and declared that he would write for antiquity. Evidently the same whimsical spirit has touched Miss Margaret Kennedy. Her new comedy would seem to have been written expressly for Gerald du Maurier. He, alas, is no longer here to play in it, and without him it is an empty vehicle. ...

... The Goebbels Diaries 44 Answer io Question 33 44 The Harp in the South9* Elizabeth Bcwetis THE GOEBBELS DIARIES (Hamish Hamil ton; 21s.) have been translated and edited by Louis P. Lochner-- for many years Berlin correspondent of the Associated Press of America. Mr. Lochner's task was, he tells us, as exacting, and needed as close a use of the judgment, as any which had con fronted him ...

... THE warm spring weather is certainly bringing out the new novels in a flurry of promise and, sometimes, of performance. First of all there is a work by that elegant veteran of the craft, Mr. Gil bert Frankau, who has written his first novel for some years, and one of his longest and most moving, with MICHAEL'S WIFE (Macdonald. 12s. 6d.). l'svchiatr.v and analysis and psychoanalysis have lately ...

... THE revisiting of old films, particularly in company with a generation to whom any thing that was made the day before yester day seems practically prehistoric, is generally a mug's game, leading to disappointment, despon dency and discountenance. (Whatever did the old dear see in those ghastly pictures?) But I think you can safely make an exception in favour of The Cabinet of Dr. ...

... ctk tfcu Royal Circle (Wyndham 's J AUDIENCES so dumb that they will not venture to say Boo! to the veriest goose of a play offend sticklers for the rigour of the theatrical game. Hisses are hideous sounds, but they betoken a healthy spirit of discrimination. So runs the virilist argument, plausibly enough; yet in my experience the mere goose stands in less danger of noisy disapprobation ...

... By C. A. Lejeune THE MURDERERS ARE AMONGST US.-- This first post-war German film to be shown publicly in England has come in for a good deal of criticism on political grounds-- most of it, in my opinion, quite unwarranted. On artistic grounds it is extremely hard to fault. The film is a fine piece of work in the characteristic German school of craftsmanship rather darker in tone and heavier ...

... 44 Winged Dagrgrer 44 Siill Glides the Stream The Widow's House 44 Bog: Blossom Stories Elizabeth Betvens Bamett Freedman is the subject of one of the latest volumes in the series English Masters of Black-and-White, published by Art and Technics at 8s. 6d. Jonathan Mayne tells the story of this fine illustrator and war artist, who achieved success after years of illness and difficulties, and ...

... OUR BOOKSHELF Rupert Croft-Cooke OUR REV 'lEWER'S CHOICE THE HARP IN THE SOUTH. By Ruth Park. (Michael Joseph 9s. 6 d.) WITH AND WITHOUT TEARS. By L. Steni. (i Falcon Press 8s. 6d.) NEVER AGAIN. By Francis King. (Home and Van Thai 9s. 6 d.) THE STREAM OF DAYS. By Taha Hussein. (Longmans Green 8s. 6d.) THE HARP IN THE SOUTH.-- Most novels which have had Australian backgrounds have been so ...