Hanover Browsing

ONE of the great benefactors of the Dartmouth Library in recent years is George Matthew Adams. In Today's Talk for February 10, 1956, he sings a paean of praise for paper-backed books. Let me quote him: "The ways to learning and an educated mind are getting easier and cheaper every day. I have been much interested in the millions of paper-back books that are being sold for a price within the means of all. We can now get our greatest books to read at a price no greater than what we might pay for a cheap breakfast! The classics of the world for but a few cents. Big meals for the mind." He goes on to say, "One of the latest of these books that can be purchased for but thirty-five cents is entitled Best Loved Books of theTwentieth Century, by Vincent Starrett. ...Here is a small book that can introduce anyone to a regular library of books that have stood the test of time, and which will long live among our best beloved books."

Here are a few of my recent bargains:

For the serious reader: George Santayana's Character and Opinion in theUnited States (75 cents), a shrewd and objective view of the Harvard philosophers, William James and Josiah Royce, and American thinking in general some forty years ago. Anchor Books.

Ortega y Gasset's The Dehumanizationof Art and Other Writings on Art and Culture. This contains not only an excellent series of observations on painting, ancient and modern, but also has one of the most intelligent essays on Goethe that I have ever read. An excellent book for anyone interested in art or culture. Another Anchor Book.

For the less serious reader: Bantam Books publishes novels, Westerns, and a wide variety of titles. Some that have come my way recently are Francis Hackett's Henry the Eighth, which first appeared in 1939 and had a big success; Emil Ludwig's Cleopatra (first issued in 1937), a popular account of an early throne wrecker; Frederick Lewis Allen's exciting account of The Great Pierpont Morgan (Harper's, 1949). These are issued at 50 cents.

For one interested in printing: S.H. Steinberg's Five Hundred Years of Printing is the story of the relation between printing and civilization, the interdependence of printers, publishers, and the public, and such topics as censorship and bestsellers. There are 33 pages of illustration. This is issued as one of the newest Pelican Books. Mine is the English edition at 3/6 (about fifty cents) and the American edition will cost about a dollar when, and if, it comes out here.

For the reader of adventure stories I recommend the following titles: John Master's Coromandel, a magnificently lavish novel of an English adventurer in India; Richard E. Roberts' Last Frontier (a Western); John O'Hara's Hope of Heaven; John Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday; and Will Henry's Who Rides with Wyatt, a "blazing novel" of the greatest gun fighter of them all, Wyatt Earp. This is a Bantam Giant for 35 cents.

I recently came across Alva Johnston's amusing book: The Legendary Mizners, much of which appeared in The NewYorker, published by Farrar/Straus. It is indeed a fabulous picture of an age that will not likely return. Addison and Wilson made a career at being different and succeeded quite well at it. Look it up if you want a laugh.

For anyone interested in books and bibliography I wish to remind you of the standard book on the subject: Ronald B. McKerrow's An Introduction to Bibliography. The last edition I have seen is the 1948 one issued by the Oxford Press. This is the real McCoy in its field.

If you happen to be bi-partisan or a Democrat (not a right winger) you might find entertaining, and at times even brilliant, Herblock's Here and Now, a book of 250 cartoons and some thirty thousand words of text. His Washington readers are legion.