... : f Reviewed by I 'Trevor Allen I HOW I envy those detached people who can retire with a hefty novel, not only reading every line in a leisurely way, but living in the story and not worrying if it takes a month to finish. Mr. Frank Tilsley's Champion Road (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 12s. 6d.) tells in 700 packed pages of Jonathan Briggs, tough Lanca shire builder, who gets ahead by Jerry and ...

... . By Manly Wellman. (Sampson Low 8s. 6d.) All one can ask of an American thriller fast-moving, mysterious, slick and stormy. ...

... sr . By Alan Wykes. (Duckworth 8s. 6d.) Real power in this grim little story of brotherly vengeance. And some good hell-for- leather verbiage. R. C.-C. ...

... . Takes Small Bites. By George H. Johnston. (Gollancz 8s. 6d.) Johnston. (Gollancz 8s. 6d.) Adventure on what remains of the Burma Road. Quite readable. ...

... GUS THE GREAT. By Thomas W. Duncan. Sampson Low 12s. 6 d.) THE GOLDEN SLEEP. By Vivian Connell. (Seeker and Warburg 10s. 6 d.) EMILY. By James Hanley. (Nicholson and Watson 8s. 6 d.) COMMENTS ON CAIN. By F. Tennyson Jesse. (Heinemann 10s. 6d.) OUR REVIEWER'S CHOICE Rupert Croft-Cooke GUS THE GREAT.-- This is a huge novel which justifies its own size by sheer hard-working narration. It is ...

... . By Martin Weed 011. (Barker 10s. 6d.) Day-to-day diary kept by the author while he was a prisoner of the Japanese. Detailed and factual, it could have made the basis of an interesting book. BOOKS IN BRIEF ...

... it . it Day, Another Dollar. By John T. Winterich. (Benn 9s. 6d.) Winterich. (Benn 9s. 6d.) And another story of an American boyhood, this time in Providence, Rhode Island, in the first decade of this century. ...

... . ft By Frank Singleton. (Chatto and Windus 8s. 6d.) A bad title for a good book. A woman supposes that she is responsible for the death of a boisterous young blackguard and so pieces together the story of his life and death. The whole thing is excellently conceived and written. ...

... (t$7 ^tfuuCkj^ Saloon Bar (Garrick) Anthony Cookman with Tom Titt A SALOON bar should always (to my think ing) be a survival from the past. The past need not be very remote and I have no romantic allegiance to oak beams, but it should be at least far enough away for us to feel that we have by happy chance cast anchor for a brief while in a cosier age than our own. The saloon bar of the Cap ...

... REC0Hg DF THE WEEK TASMANIAN-BORN Margherita Grandi obviously inherited her ability to sing and her amazing dramatic powers from her Italian and Irish parents. Many of you will remember her singing at Glyndebourne prior to 1939, and in the years that have passed since then her voice has matured and has now an intensity which she controls with genuine artistry and restraint. Last year she was ...

... DR. A. J. CRONIN'S new novel is welcome as flowers in October, because it is in his very best vein of narrative, and because it is about a doctor of science, one to whom research is as exciting as exploration, or as new records in flying. This is a world, or a state ot mmd, on which this writer can express himself with a certain amount of authority, and it is that grasp which makes this novel ...

... Elizabeth Bewehs WHAT would you do if, out of the blue one morning, you got a letter inviting your child to become a film star? The flat in the big block overlooking the village in Piccadilly had throughout the whole war survived bombing: it was in this same flat, at breakfast-time, in July of a year ago, that a very different bombshell was to explode. Dear Madam, said this letter (more or ...