... A LOOK AT BRITAIN The Welfare State and the living conditions of children of working mothers Searching the nation's soul, probing for points of weakness in our everyday life, is the preoccupation of several writers whose books command attention this week. Anthony Hartley's A STAGE OF ENGLAND (Hutchinson. 25s.) is a diagnosis by a talented journalist of the present major ills beset ting us. Mr. ...

... A HOUSE DIVIDED A reassessment of the American Civil War The subdued, candid and reasonable exchange of views which took place between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in the second decade of the nineteenth century, when these two elder statesmen examined the capacity of the American union to endure, gave place in due time to the harsh realities of civil war. It was no longer possible to ...

... Notre |ame de Sartre ONE OF THE RUMMEST THINGS ABOUT THE FRENCH is that they can he so frivolous about the decorative and functional aspects of women and so bleakly serious about ladies of intellect-- among whom the purest, finest, least fading flower is of course Simone de Beauvoir. The Prime of Life is the second volume of her gigantic autobiography, and it proves once again that whether ...

... She don't know I don't mm in L'ECLIPSE DIRECTOR MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI (MONICA VITTI, ALAIN DELON) PRIVATE POTTER DIRECTOR CASPAR WREDE (TOM COURTENAY, MOGENS WIETH, RALPH MICHAEL) AREN'T WE WONDERFUL? DIRECTOR KURT HOFFMAN (HANSJORG FELMY, ROBERT GRAF) FOR A FEW EXHILARATING MOMENTS SIGNOR Michelangelo Antonioni's latest film, L'Eclipse, held a promise of parody: it just did not seem possible ...

... WEI IL TRITTICO-BY PUCCINI THE VOICE OF THE CENTURY-CARUSO WITH THEIR CUSTOMARY SMUG SATISFACTION AT having corrected the composer's homework for him, the BBC televised Carmen the other hay with the part of Micaëla cut altogether --on the grounds that the character does not appear in the original story on which the opera is based, but only in the libretto. But what a nitv. havinsr read the ...

... IWlfl Plfflo WMM Mil mm wm the war and colonel warden RV GERALD PAWLE (HARRAP, 35s.) NO HDING PLACE BY EDWIN LANHAM fSOLLANCZ, 15s.) THE MAN OF PRIN CIPLE BY DUDLEY BARKER (HEINEM ANN, qns PIGEON FEATHERS BY JOHN UPDIKE OEUTSCH, 18s.) THE NEAREST AND DEAREST BY ELIZABETH WALTER (HAR- VILL, 16s.) GERALD PAWLE HAS WRITTEN IN The War and Colonel Warden the perfect book for all who like to revive ...

... 1I111HI PICTURES ALE, CRANE KALM AN GALLERY IT'S BARGAIN TIME IN BROMPTON ROAD-- NOT, as they say in the popular press at a big Knightsbridge store, but at the art gallery on the other side of the road that is run by ex-Wimbledon tennis player, Andras (André to his friends) Kalman. And when I say bargain I mean exactly that. Prices range from £10 to £200 and some of the pictures are, to my ...

... BLOOD MONEY DIRECTOR RALPH NEL- con (ANTHONY QUINN, JACKIE GLEASON, MICKEY ROONEY, JULIE HARRIS) THE HOOK DIRECTOR GEORGE SEATON (KIRK DOUGLAS, ROBERT WALKER, NICK ADAMS, NEHEMIAH PERSOFF) THE DOLL DIRECTOR ARNE MATTSSON (PER OSCAR- SSON GIO PETRE) THE BARBER OF STAMFORD HILL DIRECTOR CASPAR WREDE (JOHN BENNETT, MAXWELL SHAW, MEGS JENKINS) MR. ROD SERLING, ON WHOSE TV DRAMA Requiem for a ...

... HERO OR ANTI-HERO? Baal at the Phoenix Stephen D at the St. Martin's The London theatre scene has been enlivened by two young actors in striking roles Peter O'Toole enhancing an already high reputation by mesmeric acting as the enigmatically depraved poet Baal in Bertold Brecht's first play; and Norman Rodway as Stephen in the stage adaptation of James Joyce's autobiographical writings A ...

... IN TWO WORLD WARS Stuart Hood recalls pghting with partisans in the last war; Arthur Behrend in Flanders in 1917-18; and recent fiction Memories of two wars provide authors with the material for two of the week's most dis tinguished books. First, Mr. Stuart Hood with PEBBLES FROM MY SKULL (Hutchin son. 18s.), in which he writes of the last war and of the period when he escaped from cap tivity ...

... Two new books, dealing with respectively the Egyptian Expedition and the year 1815 Two low points in the life and times of Napoleon Bonaparte provide the theme for new volumes of research; the first of them deals with the Egyptian adventure before the turn of the eighteenth century; the second with the final dissolution, the year of Waterloo, at the end of the long, long trail of glory that ...

... Gruesome idyllic UNTIL I saw This Sporting Life I HAD NOT realized that Rugby football is a blood sport: indeed Messrs. Donald Houston and Mere dith Edwards, who took me to see it played for the first and last time in my sheltered existence had assured me it is a polite and gentle pastime compared with soccer, in which sensation-seeking spectators can count upon a far higher percentage of ...