... By THE SPHERE TRAVEL CORRESPONDENT There are some places that exceed one's expec tations. Such a place is Bruges. The first time I saw it was on one of those peerless days of wood smoke and autumn sunshine, driving away from the smart brash coast that was rest ing on its laurels after the summer surge. The approach was perfect. Side-tracking from Knocke through Damme, that gem of an ancient ...

... Rhodes by J. G. Lockhart and the Hon. C. M. Woodhouse: Hodder and Stoughton. 42s. Victorian Cities by Asa Briggs: Odhams. 35s. Try Anything Twice by Desmond Young: Hamish Hamilton. 30s. The Standard Bearer by Peter Verney: Hutchinson. 35s. Alfred Mynn and the Cricketers of His Time by Patrick Morrah: Eyre and Spottiswoode. 25s. Allis Through the Looking Glass: My World of Golf by Peter Allis ...

... The new crop of films includes three that fall into three different categories comedy, contemporary drama and thriller. Pick of the bunch is the comedy The Notorious Landlady made by Columbia and starring Jack Lemmon, Kim Novak and Fred Astaire. Set in England, in the dotty world of Ealing Studio comedies, the story tells how William Gridley, played by Jack Lemmon, a newly-arrived U.S. ...

... at the Old Vic The new production of Shakespeare's romantic tragedy is directed by Franco Zeffirelli, best known in Britain for his opera productions at Covent Garden. It is the first time that the Italian producer has directed Shakespeare, and Romeo and Juliet with its background of family strife in Verona, is a happy choice. The production is noteworthy for its settings of Italian streets ...

... KHRUSHCHEV'S POLICY The Importance of Farmlands The world has watched the recent behaviour of Mr. Khrushchev with bewilderment, for very few of us can do more than hazard what are the pressures of political life in Soviet Russia in the post-Stalinist era. His latest biographer, George Paloczi-Horvath, is a Hungarian by birth who has studied Soviet theory and practice for more than twenty years ...

... The Matador's Life The Autobiography of Carlos Arruza When the great matador Don Juan Belmonte was once asked to comment upon his autobiography he is said to have replied that it had never occurred to him to read it. The same story could no doubt be told of many a celebrity, but not of Carlos Arruza, whose book MY LIFE AS A MATADOR (Hutchinson, 21s.) is very much the work of his own hand and a ...

... Women M.P.s designing gardens intelligence tests; and this week's novels With all you've seen and done, all the people you 've known-- you ought to write a book. This must be one of the most frequent ex pressions of relatively uninformed opinion that exists. These enthusiasts seldom consider whether the much-experienced person so ad dressed is capable of writing acceptable prose. There are ...

... AN ENGLISH INSTITUTION The story of Moss Bros travel far and wide other non-fiction and this week's list of novels In the strictest sense, the term national institution refers to such perennial events as Derby Day, Royal garden parties, Ascot, Prime Ministers, grumbling, Henley, hop picking, point-to-points, heckling (which is a more lively form of grumbling, after all), the Opening of ...

... Changing London's Shopping Habits The American Who Founded Self ridges Class Behaviour in the U.S.; More Autobiography by Frank Norman and a Cosmopolitan Collection of Novels TO thousands, possibly millions, of Londoners the name of Selfridge is as familiar as the name of a street or a park, too much so for this to seem like an unsolicited testimonial. Now the biography of the man himself, ...

... LEADER OF THE DUTCH Authoritative biography of Prince Bernhard Let it be said from the outset that Alden Hatch's authorised biography of H.R.H. PRINCE BERNHARD OF THE NETHERLANDS (Harrap. 25s.) is something much more than a long diatribe about the Prince's feud with Field- Marshal Montgomery. Unfortunately this very penetrating account of a varied career has already suffered from the one-sided ...

... Memories of Show Business Reminiscences of Henry Kendall and the Autobiography of Fred Astaire; Memoirs of Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart; Decision About Hiroshima; Biography of an 18th-century Figure; This Week's Fiction THERE may be-- in fact, there are-- books of greater significance in this week's list than the autobiography of that popular actor, Mr. Henry Kendall, but I have chosen to write ...

... KNOW YOUR RIVIERA Bikini Beach by Geoffrey Bocca: W. H. Allen. 16s, subtitled The Wicked Riviera As It was and Is this study of a region in spite of the frivolity of its jacket and title, has a. vein of sound. practical information and has been written by a man who quite evidently knows the coast well. He appreciates it even in its season of autumn rains which the residents keep as an ...