Hanover Browsing
I CAN recommend without reservations Edwin Way Teale's book North Withthe Spring, most movingly dedicated to his only son killed in the last war. Mr. Teale went South in the winter and followed the spring northward, taking many side trips on the way. Roughly from Miami through the Everglades to Lake Okeechobee, north to the floating islands, west to the coastal marshes beyond the Mississippi in Louisiana, and so on to the Canadian border. I am sorry to say he missed Hanover but he switched off at Manchester and went into Vermont. With William Beebe now a little quiet, I fancy Mr. Teale is our leading American naturalist. He is also a good Thoreauvian and I am glad to salute him.
As usual I have more books than I can mention, but I must also recommend another Christmas book: Bill Douglas's Strange Lands and Friendly People. The inaction of sitting on the Supreme Court bench must have him often straining at the leash, but at any rate he has been able to satisfy his lust for adventure, and his desire to get first-hand knowledge and experience, during the summer seasons. This book, as you probably know, covers the Near East including Iran, Iraq, and on into India. Douglas shows a proper democratic sympathy for the people, for the have-nots, for those millions sadly exploited by their rotten governments. I have no doubt Douglas is a controversial figure among good Republicans, but nevertheless they would do well to read and ponder his book. I am one of the no-good Republicans who did so.
Also I can recommend for bedside reading E. M. Forster's Two Cheers for Democracy, a book of short essays, which if not quite up to the quality of AbingerHarvest (1936) is nevertheless pleasant going. Mr. Forster is a civilized man, a rare thing at any time.
Another book I take with me on trains is Times Puzzles edited by Margaret rar who does the daily crossword for the greatest newspaper in the world. They do not crack your skull the way some of the Sunday Times ones do. A harmless sport for the extroverts of the Truman era.
For those who are not afraid of ideas with which they do not agree I also suggest a dipping into Bertrand Russell's Unpopular Essays which may be purchased in the Simon and Schuster dollar edition. Surely worth the price of a couple, or is it one, highball.
Which leads me inevitably to Bernard De Voto's memorable little book called, Rollo-like, The Hour. There is much thoroughly sound advice herein which if followed by the distaff side might well lower the divorce rate. He is first, last and always for a very dry martini sans olive, onion (oh yes indeed) in about the proportion of four to one. Four gin, and one dry vermouth. Grenadine ... I hesitate to mention how low he puts that! Forty fathoms below whale ... and as I was saying he doesn't even like Scotch which is where he and I take Frost's two roads, one much travelled by, etc. Mr. De Voto has done a public service in writing this book. Designed especially for the fair sex, or the unfair sex, whichever way you want it. Certainly they are terribly off key when they serve, with a simper, a drink made of coffee grounds, benedictine, a dash of grenadine, a touch of whipped cream, and call it George Washington's punch.
I enjoyed Charles P. Everitt's The Adventures of a Treasure Hunter. He does quite a job on the late A. E. Newton, whose error in quoting book values in his books cost a lot of people a lot of money, and served them right, too. Though ten thousand percent profit was not unusual in Mr. Everitt's career, the chase was the thing, and the fun, and the conversations! This is a book all librarians should be forced to read.
Francis F. Beirne has written The Amiable Baltimoreans (Dutton), and if it is not as interesting as Cleveland Amory's book The Proper Bostonians it is nevertheless a reasonably thorough and amusing account of Baltimore.
