... OUR BOOKSHELF Rupert Croft-Cooke OUR REVIEWER'S CHOICE THE MILITARY ORCHID.-- Someone is bound to say of this captivating book that the writing itself has an orchidaceous quality, and the criticism will be nearly true. At times there is a liveliness of colouring, a feathery and exotic delicacy in Mr. Brooke's prose, which might have come from long contemplation of the flowers he loves. JLne ...

... (Mr ILl^ ^t^ruMAjL- Anthony Cookman with Tom Titt Bob's Your Uncle Saville J IT would be ridiculous to do badly in 1948 what had already been done superlatively well in 1819. In describing Munden, Lamb, with prophetic eye, described Mr. Leslie Henson. When you think that he has exhausted his battery of looks, in unaccountable warfare with your gravity, suddenly he sprouts out an entirely new ...

... THE ARMOUR OF ALLURE How 14 The Perfect Lady Dressed in Victorian Days Camisoles garnished with whalebone, crescentic pads stuffed with horsehair (to throw the skirt well out over the hips) and metal busks were just a few of the dreadful ideas our Victorian ancestors perpetrated in the name of fashion. That was how we looked upon it in the '20's and '30's of this new, enlightened age; and now, ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... Elizabeth Bewehs GREAT MORNING (Macmillan; 15s.) is the third volume of Sir Osbert Sitwell's autobiography. Following upon Left Hand, Right Hand! and The Scarlet Tree, the announcement of its appearance has been awaited as might be the sounding of a gong before yet another superb meal. This is a book to be opened with a salivary eagerness it will not disappoint. In autobiography our age has ...

... (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 ...

... IT was Cardinal Newman's wish that anyone writing a biography of him should begin with his forty-fifth year, the year in which he was admitted into the Catholic Church, and so far the biographers have fol lowed that desire and written mainly of his life as a Catholic, beginning with the great controversy caused by his leaving the Church of England. In i8as. this steD of Newman's was ...

... 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 ...

... Ircgic Ground. By Erskine Caldwell. (Falcon Press 8s. 6d.) 1 >llows exactly this author's well- inown prescription a slump, a slum, dee and violence. ?ri ice Leopold and Anna. By Laurian Jones. (Michael Joseph 8s. 6d.) A pleasant, unflustered love-story leatly written. English girl, German lusrand, war, separation, reunion. I'he English Landscape Garden. By H. F. Clark. (Pleiades Books 12s. 6d ...

... BOND STREET.-- Hung in every shop-window in Bond Street, an nounces an off-screen female voice at the beginning of this film, is a story; and the producers proceed to give us four of them. The quartet of episodes that make up the picture are all connected with a bride's paraphernalia: the story of a wedding-dress, the story of a string of pearls, the story of a bridal veil, the story of the ...