Hanover Browsing
How to Abandon Ship, by Phil Richards and John J. Banigan (Cornell Maritime Press, 1942) may very well save the lives of any who read it if they are in the habit of going to sea during this war. This pocket size book of 152 pages is crammed full of good sense and practical advice for all seamen. I quite believe it when I read that among the men who have gone down in the hundreds of ships sunk by the Axis there were hundreds who should still be alive if they knew how to abandon ship. This little book would have told them and it was written with the help of many front-line veterans, survivors of torpedoed ships. It tells how to launch a life boat and get away from a sinking vessel, it explains what must be done to survive cold, heat, storms, thirst, and starvation in an open boat. It teaches how to swim in an oil slick, how to cook fish without fire, how to take care of wounds, etc. You will recall with a shudder with what confidence you used to wear the cork lifebelts served out in pre-war liners; they were highly lethal gadgets, and my guess is that you will not see them again on land or sea. This book only costs a dollar and if any of you have sons at sea or soldiers going overseas, buy it and send it to them at once.
You have probably already read MacKinlay Kantor's Happy Land (CowardMcCann, 1943), but I write this on the day it comes out as Cecil Goldbeck '22 kindly sent me an advanced copy for Christmas. It is a kindly, sentimental book concerned with a man in his forties who loses his son
in an enemy action at sea. How he regains his faith is the theme of the book. The story makes clear "that a civilization which grows up with such simple pleasures as Boy Scouts, and bob rides, public high schools and neighborly kindnesses, with churches and drugstores, and little boys playing Indian in the cornfields, must not perish." The atmosphere of a small town is faithfully reproduced and my guess is that the book will have a deservedly wide sale.
A crack English war book, Sword of Bone by Anthony Rhodes (Faber) has come my way and I hasten to recommend it if you can get hold of a copy. The author succeeds in being entertaining and amusing in dealing with the "phoney war" and when this ended in May, 1940, Mr. Rhodes describes with great fidelity the British rearguard actions to Dunkirk and his subsequent escape with his men. I have not read before as vivid an account of the bombing of the men on the beaches and in the cellars of this city of the "miracle." This author has been hailed as one who rivals Evelyn Waugh but I can recall no Waugh book (no pun intended) as good as this one.
(If at any time you wish to order a book from London I can recommend, if you wish to deal direct, Bertram Rota, Bodley House, Vigo Street London, W. 1.)
A distinctly American book, and written by a man now in the armed services (last heard from in Oklahoma), and very much worth your while is American in Search ofa Way, by Walter Morris (Macmillan, 1942). This is a Journal, which begins when Morris was 12, but the real bulk of the book covers the years from 1927-1942. Mr. Morris went to the University of Michigan, and there was a close friend of Paul Bowerman '20, who is mentioned in the book. Thereafter the book tells of Morris' struggle to make a living through the depression in a small New York town. What he did and thought must reflect the actions and thoughts of millions like him. The blurb mentions that this is a unique book, which it is, and that it may well become an American classic (and I believe that, too). You'll find yourself in this book and I hope you buy it and read it.
For the intellectuals I merely want to point out that there is a book worthy of your steel called OnGrowth and Form by Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, and published at $12.50 by Macmillan. But what a book! Nearly twelve hundred pages dealing with the biological problems of growth and form, and form and function, in their necessary relation to physical principles and mathematical laws. There are illustrations and I am convinced' that it is one of the really great creative works of our time. This is a revised and enlarged edition and it has been out of print and scarce for many years. For the philosophically and mathematically minded. I hasten to say that it is far beyond me but I'm sure it would be applesauce for Bancroft Brown. It was written for him, and I shall see that he at least looks at it.
Of interest to Dartmouth men at this particular time should be The Russian Review, 215 West 23rd Street, New York City, whose managing editor is Dr. Dimitri von Mohrenschildt, Visiting Lecturer in Russian at Dartmouth.
The aim of The Russian Review is to present a non-partisan interpretation of Russian history, civilization, and culture. William Henry Chamberlin is the editor.
Also recommended: Ben Ames Williams' Time of Peace, Tod Claymore's FlarePath, Frederick Oechsner's This is the Enemy, John Jennings' Gentleman Ranker. More another time.
