Hanover Browsing
THE FOLLOWING BOOKS are some I can recommend for Christmas.
For the Family: Life's Picture History ofWorld War II. This is a well-printed selection of pictures depicting the last war in all its dirt, glory, courage, and viciousness. There are four-color plates, and many magnificent and unforgettable photographs. Much of the text is by John Dos Passos.
For the Robert Frost Collector: SomeModern American Poets by James G. South-worth (Oxford: Basil Blackwell). About 45 pages on Robert Frost. Southworth concludes that "though American poetry is coming of age," there is only one "with sufficient stature to take his place among the great poets: Robert Frost."
For the Vermonter: Contrary Country by Ralph Nading Hill '39. (See the review in this issue.)
For All Travellers: Any book by Sydney Clark '12. If you are planning a trip to Holland, France, South America, Central America, Cuba, Mexico, the Caribbean, England, Scandinavia or Hawaii, you will find his books on these countries absolutely necessary. They will save you worry, trouble, and they are worth their weight in silver.
For the Scholar: A new book on Thackeray which attempts to demolish his reputation as a novelist, and halfway succeeds. This book, by J. Y. T. Greig, is called Thackeray: A Reconsideration (Oxford).
For the Reader of Fiction, light, dark, and medium:
Angela Thirkell's County Chronicle (Knopf) is an amusing novel, if you like Barsetshire, rattling along at an even pace, with a delicate sense of humor, a love for decency and good living, and with a considerable aversion to socialism and the Labour Government in England.
In For a Penny by Oliver Anderson (Morrow). This is a rather hilarious and pleasantly bawdy story of the Reverend Stephen Pocket, his fantastic daughter Doris, and his son Hugo, and of life as it really can be, and often is, in the country. The scene is England, and the light touch, so often missing in our fiction, is here in abundance.
The Infinite Woman by Edison Marshall (Farrar) is a well-told story of a girl, passionate and earthy, who became a great dancer, the mistress of a King, and the ruling lady of Europe for quite a spell. The background is Victorian England, India, the continent, and various other places. For those who love romance and lavish historical detail.
An American Dream Girl by James T. Farrell (Vanguard). There are 21 short stories here ranging from excellent character sketches, a bitter commentary on race hatred, to stories of those who try valiantly to hew the Party line and what happens to them. The stories are laid in Chicago, New York, and Paris for the most part. Some are excellent.
For the Readers of Detective Fiction: The latest Nero Wolfe is very good. I read so many that their titles slip my mind. I generally go by the publisher rather than the author. I find that Mill (or Morrow), Knopf, Dodd Mead, sometimes Lippincott, and Simon and Schuster, seldom let you down. I prefer the English detective story as being better written as a rule, often with a light touch and with more wit, sardonic or otherwise. You can buy lots of good ones in the Penguin series. The American equivalent goes in for sexy covers, often changes the titles, and is geared to sell to the quick reader who likes his murders tough and sexy: that is, the scrambled egg and coffee school.
For Those Who Like Biography or Autobiography: I am now finishing Osbert Sitwell's fifth and final volume of his reminiscences, Noble Essences, and am finding it as delightful as the four volumes which preceded it. These, if you have forgotten, are: Volume I, Left Hand, RightHand!, Volume II, The Scarlet Tree, Volume III, Great Morning, and Volume IV, Laughter in the Next Room. His final volume deals with such diverse people as Edmund Gosse, Ronald Firbank, Wilfred Owen, D'Annunzio, Walter Sickert, W. H. Davies, Rex Whistler and Arnold Bennett.
William Plomer's Double Lives and Anne Treneer's Schoolhouse in the Wind are in Cape's Traveller's Library, and are excellent bargains at around a dollar jsver here. These two are most interesting and refreshing autobiographies.
For the Naturalist: Sir John Graham Kerr's A Naturalist in the Gran Chaco (Cambridge University Press) is a magnificent story of an expedition made sixty years ago. Very fine.
Lack of space forbids further recommendations but these are all good.
UNITED NATIONS FLAG FOR DARTMOUTH: In connection with United Nations Day, President Dickey accepted from a number of Hanover women's organizations the flag shown above which was flown with the Stars and Stripes on the campus October 24. With the President are (I to r) Mrs. Warren E. Montsie ('l5), Mrs. Archer E. Hudson and Mrs. Wayne E. Stevens.
