SO YOU'RE GOING TO THE MEDITERRANEAN ! By Clara E.
Laughlin The popularity of cruises has produced a demand for a new kind of guide-book : one covering many places in many countries. Its arrangement should correspond to the usual itinerary of the cruising-lines, and its historical and geographical notes should be comparative, so as to give continuity N what might otherwise be a mere hodge-podge of odd impressions. So You're Going to the Mediterranean (Methuen, 10s. 6d.) comes fairly well up to these standards, though it has many irritating defects. Miss Laughlin's previous books on the individual Mediterranean Countries are well known for their comprehensiveness, and she has managed to pack a remarkable amount of information into the six hundred pages of this volume. Unfortunately, in her attempt to make it easy reading for the holiday-maker, she has- fallen into that chatty style of address associated with American travel-Mm commen- taries. And she should not have allowed her obvious prefer- ence for Andalusia to lead her into devoting fourteen pages to Granada, including some unnecessary quotations from Washing- ton Irving, while dismissing the Balearic Islands in less than a page. But on the whole her choice of facts is good, the infbr- mation regarding transport, hotels, and such matters, up. to date and accurate. The book is marred by the absence of a good map. Publishers and authors of books for popular-.con- sumption make a great mistake when they substitute exiguous sketch-maps for the real thing..
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