Hanover Browsing
The following books are recommended for Christmas:
Circle of the Seasons, by Edwin Way Teale (Dodd, Mead: $4). My friend George Matthew Adams, who knows a good book when he sees one, recommends this. The book is written in the form of a diary and takes the reader for a Teale's eye view of nature for the year. The photographs are excellent, and beautifully complement the prose.
Boswell on the Grand Tour: Germanyand Switzerland, 1764, edited by Frederick A. Pottle (McGraw-Hill: $5). The irrepressible James Boswell meets Rousseau in Switzerland, and Voltaire at Ferney, just across the border. Again, as in his riotous London days, he indulges in amorous intrigue. This book is much more entertaining than Boswell in Holland.
Tales of Land and Sea, by Joseph Conrad, illustrated by Richard M. Powers (Hanover House: $2.95). This exciting volume contains a shrewd introduction by McFee and Conrad's incomparable tales: Youth, Heart of Darkness, The Nigger ofthe Narcissus, Typhoon, The Secret Sharer,The Shadow-Line, and six other stories by this prose master of our century. A wonderful bargain.
The Time of the Gringo, by Elliott Arnold (Knopf: $4.95). Arnold is a fine writer, and out of the American past he has provided an exciting and suggestive story of the fall of the Mexican province of New Mexico to a United States Army. Arnold lives in and knows the Southwest, and this book has all the color and romance of this fantastic and beautiful country.
Don't Call It Frisco, by Herb Caen (Doubleday: $3.50). Mr. Caen writes for the San Francisco Examiner, and his book about San Francisco and some of its odd characters is for anybody who has ever been to Baghdad-by-the-Bay, which is, for my money, by far the most colorful and charming city in these United States. Page Perc Brown and Joe Bransten!
Conversation With the Earth, by Hans Cloos (Knopf, $5.75). Books are expensive these days but this one distills the knowledge of the earth gleaned in a lifetime by the late head of the Department of Geology at Bonn and is thus practically a gift. Hans Cloos gives without stint in his unusual and unorthodox approach to geolog. ical problems. I found it fascinating—there is no other word that adequately describes it. There are more than 75 plates and tables. Like all Knopf books this one is well printed.
The Pogo Papers, by Walt Kelly (Simon and Schuster: $1). Here is a book for the burning, joyfully depicting the penny antics of Simple J. Malarkey and Senator Macaroni, together with the exuberant follies of Pogo and his wonderful pals of the Ofenokee Swamp. This book may be given widely, but some Wisconsin and Texas readers may take offense.
Coming Down the Seine, by Robert Gibbings (Dent: 18 shillings, Dutton publishes it here). Here is another "river" book by the artist and writer Robert Gibbings. With a trained eye and an obedient pen he has captured the atmosphere of Paris, and much of the charm and simple beauty of the French countryside. Fine descriptive passages and more than fifty wood engravings for which Gibbings is justly famous are to be found in this book.
The Treasures of Darkness, by Cornelia Jessey (Noonday Press: 13.50). Here is an unusual and artistic novel written with great integrity and perception. I agree with one who has written of it that "all the anguish and feeling, wisdom and beauty of a woman's journey to independence and dignity is described." For all who like quality in contemporary writing.
The Age of the Moguls, by Stewart H. Holbrook (Doubleday: $5). Stewart Hoibrook is well known in Hanover and each of his books is eagerly awaited by his friends and many readers. This story of the empire builders is the first volume issued in the Mainstream of America Series, and sets a worthy standard for the others to follow. Even for those who know Myers' History of the Great AmericanFortunes (1936) this book will prove of great interest. It provides also a liberal education in American economic history. No tar or whitewash in the book; just good clean fun, and objective writing.
The Unconquered, by Ben Ames Williams '10 (Houghton: $5). If not quite as interesting as House Divided, this massive novel of the Reconstruction should be in the library of anyone who admired Ben Ames Williams' work, and these are legion.
For those who like high-class comedy in cartoons I urge them to buy: (1) TattooedSailor, cartoons from France by Andre Francois, (2) Dreams of Glory by Steig. and (3) Low Visibility by Low, a wonderful political commentary from 1945 to 1953.
Merry Christmas.
