... with M and venture into the unknown with X but as he drones relentlessly on about their relation ship, the past of, which he speaks mingles with the present in which she exists and she becomes sufficiently confused to believe herself committed to an elopement ...

... and full of vitality. Mr. Hall writes with considerable gusto and his book is as readable as young leaves are green. DON'T SPEAK TO STRANGERS (Mac- niillan. 13s. 6d. by Miss G. R. McCallum, is another first novel, this time from Australia: a touching, ...

... story of Rosacoke Mustian and Wesley Beavers, and by their very names you are likely to know whether their story is going to speak to you or not. The Wreathed Head, by Christine de Rivoyre translated by Patrick O'Brian, is an extraordinarily man nered, ...

... those who, like Somerset Maugham, J. B. Priestley and Elizabeth Bowen, admire his astringent brilliance. In RAYMOND CHANDLER SPEAKING (Hamish Hamilton. 21s.) we have a collection of his letters, the first chapters of the book on which he was working at his ...

... yellow fluid which, since sprat diet, smells just like sardine oil before, it had a sickly-sweet smell, a bit like a flower. Speaking on behalf of all those who are scared to death by the mere idea of a bird in the room, I admire this bold, controlled, scientific ...

... paper-backs, with pride of place going perhaps to the first two volumes of Sir Winston Churchill's HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE. Both are published by Cassell at 10s. net. Volume I, The Birth of Britain, takes us to the end of the reign of Richard ...

... the only concession to the business of going up West is an admirable scene at Victoria Station. This is a good moment to speak of Mr. Sean Kenny's part in the production a part almost as important to Mr. Bart as Dickens was in his last play. Mr. Kenny's ...

... sculptor in terms of mass, inner tension and rhythm, scale in relation to our human size and the quality of surface which speaks through our hands as well as eyes. Direct references to the human figure are comparatively rare in Miss Hepworth's work and ...

... agree. THE MUSIC MAKERS (Michael Joseph. 21s.) is Mr. Sidney Harrison's book on the lives of great composers from, roughly speak ing, Palestrina to George Gershwin, and it is as readable, in its clearly-phrased way, as many a novel. The author discusses ...

... what it is worth, is claimed as the most expensive black-and-white film ever made. The huge cast includes 57 stars and 1 67 speaking parts. The list is so long that it seems to the jaundiced eye that everyone in the film world has done his bit, as they ...

... involving spying and counter- spying, and he survives its dangers and stresses by a process of either holding his tongue or speaking what is only the simple truth. He observes the new world of secrets, perils and hidden meanings and decides that is meaning ...

... being shut away with someone in the thick of a nervous collapse, which is indeed what the whole thing is about. Characters speak fluently, indeed non-stop, but obliquely, twistedly, under great pres sure and often apparently at random. There is a good ...