... Book Reviews BETTINA LINN'S novel, A Letter To Elizabeth (Chatto & Windus, 15s.), is one of those infrequent books which remind one how great fiction's stature can be. The main situation, in itself striking, is declared in the first sentence of all: Foresta Jordan was going to see her father for the first time. And it is Foresta, aged sixteen, who speaks the closing words of the story: I ...

... Catkins and Cotton-reels TREES hold some sort of fas cination for everybody. The manner in which they depict the moods of the weather and the changing seasons never lets them pass unnoticed or be taken for granted. For this reason a great many literary works have been written about them, some plain and factual, others less informative but more inspired. In The Living Forest (Thames and Hudson ...

... ELIZABETH BOWEN SIR LAWRENCE JONES'S Georgian Afternoon (Rupert Hart- Davis, 21s.) is the third volume in a series of reminiscences-- A Victorian Boyhood, then An Edwardian Youth preceded it. On the strength of those two, Sir Lawrence is recognized as having a specially human place in literature. His writing is not so much nostalgic as, in the liveliest sense, evocative. This time, his power ...

... A Woman's Novel of Excellence A Realistic Love Story The Humour of the American Civil Service William Faulkner's Vigorous New Work Another Thomas Costain Historical Romance TO say that a specific novel is a woman's book, not only because of its authorship but because of its obvious reading public, is not to denigrate it. On the contrary, there is often about such a book an excep tional ...

... THE Potting Shed (Globe) is, perhaps, an awkward title for those who remember Cold Comfort Farm and something nasty in the woodshed. But we can have faith in Graham Greene. He freezes the laughter on our lips. I imagine that people whose life seems to depend upon a belief in disbelief will hate this play. Others will recognise in it a drama exciting in its boldness. True, the author has ...

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... The Height of Truth The Story of Wartime High- Altitude Photography A French Soldier in Algeria Hollywood and the Dodecanese Novels with Historical and Contemporary Settings ONE of the less-publicised but vital links in the chain of our war effort and its organisation was the high- altitude photography. Carried out at great risk, and interpreted by a handful of experts, it could well be said ...

... THE glory that was Greece may be a good old poetic cliché, but it expresses something we all feel deeply. It stands for a response that any well-written modern travel book can rouse by the mere mention of buses to Corinth and steamboats to the Cyclades. But it has little to do with the effect of An Affair of the Heart (Hodder and Stoughton, 21 s), in which Dilys Powell describes three post ...

... SAYONARA (Warner) is one of those films that leans over backwards in its efforts to pay tribute to the land of Madam Butterfly. This plot deals with the problem of mixed marriages between US service personnel and local girls, and in particular with the case of Marlon Brando, a flying ace and Southern general's son, who falls headlong in love with Japan's leading dancer (Miiko Taka). What with ...

... PROFESSOR H. C. PAWSON discovered several original letters written by Robert Bakewell, and has incorporated them in his biography, Robert Bakewell (Crosby Lockwood; 25s.), of this famous eighteenth-century livestock. There is much about the cnaracter ot tne man, as assessed by his contemporaries, as well as about his agricultural techniques. Of the less well known of these, one might instance ...

... PM. SODENBERG has added another excellent volume to his series on cats, for Pedigree Cats, Their Varieties, Breeding and Ex hibition (Cassell 30s.) is a most comprehensive book for any cat breeder. In the first section the charac teristics and the history of each variety are discussed, and the Standard of Points issued by the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy is given in each case. Part II ...

... Anthony Cook man GRAHAM GREENE'S new play at the Globe is religious propa ganda. To call it that is admittedly off-putting, but flags of propaganda are to be deprecated only in so far as they seem not to square up to the ideas they are trying to plant on us. Two- thirds of The Potting Shed are good exciting theatre, but it has a weak, because evasive, last act. Mr. Greene's contriving of ...