... Pioneers of Fertility, by Grichton Porteous (Fertiliser Journal t-ia., 110, cannon street, 1. on clou, E.C. 4; ios.). Devoting only five or six pages to each man, the author has succeeded in presenting a pic ture of the life-work of twenty-two of the greatest men in agriculture, from Fitzherbert of Norbury, whose Bohe of Husbandry was published in 1523, to Robert H. Elliot, who died in 191 4. ...

... Birds in Britain, by Frances Pitt Macmillan and Co. 25 s.). Books on birds, as Miss Pitt admits in her preface, are legion, but as she has the happy gift of imparting natural history knowledge to the amateur in far more readable form than most, room will undoubtedly be found for this work on many a shelf. In addition to information on the species, there are chapters on the bird's place in ...

... Fruit Farming,. Young Farmers' GluD LSooklet no. 21, puDiisned Dy Evans Brothers Ltd. at is. 6 d. This does not seem quite up to the stan dard of the pre-war handbooks of the series. The trouble is that to try to cover in 48 pages fruit- farming from suitable soils to methods of grading and storing is attempting too much to be really helpful. It seems that this subject might have been dealt ...

... . By John Connell. (Constable 21s.) IT would be a cruel and sweeping criticism to say of this book that it will be of interest chiefly to Stevensonians, but it would not be altogether untrue. Henley means little to the present age except as a man whose name appears in the index of almost every literary biography of his period. Of his own work no more than a few stanzas survive, and they have ...

... . By H. C. Branson (Bo dley Head 8s. 6 d.) This week's detective novel gets its title from one of the witches in Macbeth By the pricking of my thumbs Something wicked this way comes. And something very wicked had obviously been at work in New Paget (U.S.A.), for the local doctor had been shot apparently by a jealous husband who had afterwards murdered his own wife and com mitted suicide. ...

... . By Beverley Baxter, M.P., with Illustrations by Grant Macdonald. Hutchinson 21s.) The publishers describe this book as a selection from the weekly theatre criticisms which Mr. Baxter has now been contributing to the Evening Standard for more than six years. But it is much more' than that. Mr. Baxter's criticisms can be read, if the reader so wishes, for their verdicts on particular plays and ...

... 44 DAPHNE LAUREOLA IT is a Soho restaurant and in some disarray. The place, we gather, is being repaired. But who will worry? At Le Toil aux Pores the play must go on. Two spivs bargain in a corner. A bored man and woman argue. Four Cockneys twitter. Yorkshire and Poland are represented. And, enthroned in an alcove at the back, is a vision in shining satin: a lone diner who seems content to ...

... OUR BOOKSHELF Rupert Croft-Cooke OUR REVIEWER'S CHOICE ALL I COULD NEVER BE. By Beverley Nichols. Jonathan Cape ISs.) ATTILA. By Louis de Wohl. Gollancz 10s. 6d.) BRAVE AND CRUEL. By Denton Welch. (Hamish Hamilton 8s. 6d.) TWENTY SHILLINGS IN THE POUND. By W. Macqueen-Pope. (Hutchinson 21s.) ALL I COULD NEVER BE.-- It would be difficult to find four books more sharply contrasted than the ...

... ANY work of Alfred Hitchcock's, whether successful or unsuccessful, requires more than a cursory glance from a critic, and my choice this week falls on The Paradine Case not because it is a particularly good film, but because the man behind it is one of the very few directors who is allowed to make his own mistakes, and knows exactly what he is doing. This version of the Robert Hichens novel ...

... THE LUCK OF THE IRISH. One of the few Hollywood whimsies that have nearly come ofi, thanks to the beguiling performance of Cecil Kellaway as a leprechaun in attendance cm journalist Tyrone Power. my own true love. Phyllis Calvert and Melvyn Douglas in one of Hollywood's cost fire side chats about post-war marriage and neurosis Don't worry if you have to miss it. There 'li be lots of others. ...

... . Bv Robert Dane THERE must, I imagine, be few more disconcerting experiences than to be left goggling into a television camera at the end of one's act, uncertain whether one's face has been faded out or is still, smirking on the viewer's screen. I know nothing of the technicalities involved, but it does seem to me that it ought to be possible to devise some simple plan to put both performers ...

... j MICHAEL POWELL and Emeric Pressburger, the people who whang arrows into a target for their trade-mark, have had a pretty big tussle with the critics over their pictures, and sharp things have been said on both sides from time to time. But I don't think there should be anything except mutual cordiality over The Small Back Room, the Archers' latest. I It is intelligent, exciting, ...