Hanover Browsing

CERTAINLY one of the handsomest books ever issued by an American publisher is A Contribution to the Heritage of EveryAmerican. By Nancy Newhall, with a prologue by Fairfield Osborn and an epilogue by Horace Albright, this volume tells of the conservation activities of John D. Rockefeller Jr. The photographic illustrations, many in color, are up to the highest standards.

Mr. Rockefeller's benefactions to the American people have been many and I, for one, have enjoyed some of them. I wish I could say: all of them. Of the places "near home" one finds maps and text as well as photographs of Forest Hill Park, the Palisades, and the Hudson Valley. Of the national parks one reads of Acadia, Shenandoah, the Great Smoky Mountains, the Grand Tetons, Yosemite, and the Virgin Islands - also the giant redwoods in California, of which I have seen the Muir Woods, north and west of San Francisco. A chapter on Colonial Williamsburg is competently done. Museums at Mesa Verde, the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone are also described.

I understand that Alfred Knopf is justly proud of this volume. Mr. Rockefeller must be also. Congratulations to them both.

Mr. Knopf also did a book called ThisIs Dinosaur (1955), which contains a chapter by David Bradley '38. Through the efforts of many people, skillfully and selflessly led by the Bradley family (a salute to Dr. Harold Bradley of Berkeley, California) and the Sierra Club, Dinosaur National Park was saved for the American people. The Dinosaur Park lies in northwest Colorado and northeast Utah. The readers of this book will learn "all about it." There are fine photographs, some in color. This is a book to make one prouder than ever that he is an American.

For those who might like to possess a good history of English literature I can recommend the new edition, by Macmillan, of the well-known favorite: Legouis and Cazamian: A History of English Literature. 1427 pages for only $4.50.

A book which almost makes one marvel at the fact that we won the Second World War is Arthur Bryant's The Turn of theTide, a history of the war based on the diaries of Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, from 1939 to 1943 (Doubleday). England owes Dunkirk mainly to the genius of Alanbrooke and certainly he was one of the men who, alongside the "old master" Churchill himself, won the war for the West. One realizes how close a shave we had when one reads this book about the early mistakes and ill preparation overcome mainly by the indomitable spirit of the English people, led by Churchill, and the immense resources, bravery and skill of America under the leadership of a much maligned man, Franklin Roosevelt.

This will undoubtedly be one of the standard books on the Second World War. I think illustrations would have helped, but one can't have everything. There is a good index and about 600 pages of text. Bryant, a skillful historian, does an excellent job of condensing but it is unfortunate that many piquant passages had to be omitted owing to the fact that living figures might have been made to look silly. This will be a more valuable book when it is issued in toto around 1975.

Roger Straus has done a public service in issuing in one amazing volume the written works of one Nathaniel West (real name Nathan Weinstein) who was killed in an auto accident in Hollywood in 1940. Bitter, sardonic, cynical in a nice way are West's "The Dream Life of Balso Snell," 1931, "Miss Lonelyhearts," 1933, considered his masterpiece, "A Cool Million," 1936, and "The Day of the Locust," 1939. West had immersed himself in Voltaire and his "Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin," written in the style of Horatio Alger and obviously modeled on Candide, is worth the price of the book. For $5 this is one of the bargains of the spring and summer publishing season.

Rowena Farre's Seal Morning, a nature book, published by Hutchinson of London, is as fresh and charming as a spring daffodil covered in dew. This is a book of rare enchantment, simply written about simple people and things. A real gem which I hope you will discover for yourselves.

Here endeth my twenty-fourth year as browser.