In his book on ''The English," which Mr. "Murray will publish shortly, Mr. Frank Fox, an Aug tralian, holds up the mirror for us to'see in some detail our manners and customs from a new point of view. The author has adopted a gossipy style as affording the best means of recording his impressions, which range over the past thirteen years.
A new novel by Mr. H. G. Wells is always interesting cause he is tireless in blazing thy trail of new ideas. He has finished one which is in his visionary vein and has the title The Dream." It is now appea serially in '"Nash's Magazine," and in due course Cassell will Jaunch it as a book. "The Dream" 1s more than a human drama of love! and aspiration in conflict with the squalor and confusion of our. present environment. It is a "criticism of life," for it treats of love and marriage, sex and human destiny, religion and education, ethics and social life ce (Mr. John Ker Spittal's book "Contemporary Criticisms of Dr. Samuel Johnson," His Work and His Biographers, which Mr. Murray is publishing, should be regarded by Johnsonians and Boswelliaus generally as a "find." The reviews it: contains were written one hundred and fifty years ago, and appeared in fifty-two volumes of the "Monthly Review' series that has cally vanished, They ex) vividly the opinions of the li ry men of Johnson's own day. as Perhaps we' may have a key to the trend of Mr. Lloyd George's political thoughts, at a time when rarely expresses them, in the title he has finally chosen for his forthcoming book, "Is It Peace?'* He had thought of asking on its title-page Where Are We Going?" but now he is content to do that in the articles and papers which make the book. The volume has just been published by Messrs. Hodder Stoughton.
The Vedas are, undoubtedly one of the most important contrioutions to Indian thought; and Dr. KK. J.__Thomas's_ volume of "Vedic Hymns,' issued by Mr. Murray, fills a vacant niche in the Wisdom of the East Series—whose aim is to help to bridge the gulf between East and West and to stimulate the mutual sympathies of Occident and Orient.
Another book by Giovanni Papini, whose life of Christ has interested the Christian world, will shortly appear with Hodder and Stoughton. It is a translation of his Un Nome Finito," and the English title will be the literal rendering of that, 'A Man Finished." Here Papini tells the experiences he went through as a man soul-hungry for spiritual life. We also hear of his early years, which were clouded by penury and by, what was not less hard to bear, the apparent impossibility of reaching the wells of knowledge. An Italian admirer of Papini Tias called him the "modern EKeclesiastes.""
Mr. Michael joseph who is connected with the publishing house of Hutchinson, and so knows what he is writing about, has done a book on "Short Stay Writ'ng for Profit." He has a wide and varied - experience of the requirements of magazine editors and, correspondingly, of the defects of amateur short stories. He believes that most people, if not capable of the pro-verbal one book, are certainly capable of writing a short story. The trouble is that very few have the least understanding of the mechanics of the business, and that is where he instructs, fortified by a warm foreword from Mr. Stacy Aumonier, a master of the short story.
The October number of "Discovery" is one of the best that we have seen. Messrs. Fall and Wooley—names famous in connexion with archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia—describe how they discovered the shrine of the Moon-God, and other temples and palaces on, the ancient of Ur of the Chaldees. Mr. R. W. James, a survivor of the party left by Shackleton on Elephant Island in 1916, gives an account of the extraordinary movements of Antarctic pack-ice and—ice-floes from his own examination of them- during the Quest—_ expedition. Princess Almedingeu, who has—recently reached this country from Russia, tells of the astonishing discovery made by the Soviet last year when they opened the tomb of one of the Tzars.
Articles on Association's meeting, them insolently.. views, complete a remarkably interesting number.
"My Wanderings," by Lady Norah Bentinck, which Mr. Fisher Unwin announces, has all the promise -of an interesting book. Its author has travelled the five Continents, and has notable things to tell us about Venice, Rome, Vienna, Damascus, Egypt, the South Sew Isles, and many other places. She has met many well-known p€ople, among them Sir Redvers Buller, Madame Sarah Bernhardt, Lord Kitchener, Dr. Nansen, Paderewski, and Pope Pius X. Her book opens with a short sketch.of her own family, and it has an account of the Cottesmore Hunt, of which the famous "Tom" Noel was the founder.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.