Non-fiction
People from the Past (Denis Dobson 18s each) presents history in terms of isolated and often bizarrely chosen biographies. Of the latest trio, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm is by far the most informative and on occasion positively scholarly; Henry and Sir John Fielding, which ascribes the founding of the police force to the author of Toni Jones, and Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo (international ambassador, toady and arch-enemy of Napo- leon) are colourful but less reliable. Horrid illustrations, adequate bibliographies. '
More Animals and Russia and her Neigh- bours are nos. 7 and 8 in the Oxford Children's Reference Library (out. 25s each, published 20 June). They confirm that this is an ex- cellent, generously illustrated and informative series; also that it's almost impossible to find what you're actually looking for.
Everyday Life in Medieval Times Marjorie Rowling (Batsford 25s). A faithful and imagina- tive portrait, happily free from coyness, hand- somely produced and illustrated. To the sibling `American Life' series, Robert H. Walker has added Everyday Life in the Age of Enterprise, a methodical though not invariably dull account of the nineteenth century, including handy information on capital investment, popu- lation statistics and the coal output for 1870.
Portraits of Greatness (Paul Hamlyn 17s 6d each) present Peter the Great, Beethoven, Dante and Goethe. If your nursery coffee-table is already groaning from the weight of the previous ten, these four are dispensable : bald texts, luscious plates unforgivably reduced to pastel dullness, generally shoddy production.
Richthofen the Red Baron, Jimmy Murphy and the White Duesenberg, Nuvolari and the Alfa Romeo (Hamish Hamilton Briggs Books 13s 6d each). Smoggy drawings show the Baron going into a nose-dive and Nuvolari taking a left-hand bend, speed-lines streaming from his head; all three have a racy textual accompaniment.
Duet : The Story of Clara and Robert Schumann Elisabeth Kyle (Evans 21s). A senti- mental version of the fierce and terrible passion that inspired it, this book should on no account fall into the hands of unaccompanied adults.
Wild Season Allan W. Eckert (Gollancz 30s, published 20 June). Minutely detailed study of the creatures that live in and around a Wiscon- sin lake; spoiled only by a maudlin story-line where bass eats bullfrog, racoon eats bass, warble fly hatches in racoon and so on, through various digestive tracts, back to bullfrog.
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