Shorter notices

People I Have Loved, Known or Admired Leo Rosten (W. H. Allen £3.50) Highly Jewish anecdotage of an American nature about such as Winston Churchill, Groucho Marx, the author's father, Paul Klee, Doctor Sigmund Freud, Father Divine, "my friend Montaigne," Leonardo, someone called Laibowitz, and Adam Smith. The blurb quotes the author as saying of his characters, "I have tried to make them all seem human, which is to say childish, mature, vain, humble, flabbergasting, charming, gifted, giftless, shallow, brilliant, cheerful, somber (sic), lyrical, flat, sublime, outrageous, ordinary and astonishing ". Schmalz for schmalz's sake.

G.G.

The First Day on the Somme Martin Middlebrook (Allen Lane £3.95) A description of the blackest day in the history of the British army, on which eleven divisions of the Fourth Army under the command of Rawlinson and two divisions of the Third Army under Allenby were engaged with German troops along a seventeen-mile front beside the Somme. Between 7.30 am and about midnight on July 1, 1916, the British suffered nearly 60,000 casualties for little appreciable gain of territory or position. Martin Middlebrook describes each divisionary movement in detail through official histories, depositions in the Public Record Office and eye-witness accounts; and he follows closely the actions of ten men, three of whom were to be killed, to give an impression of the effect of the battle on the individual soldier. The book is well illustrated with maps and photographs.

C.H.

Thalberg and Selznich Bob Thomas (W. H. Allen £3.50 each)

Pedestrian but straightforward biographies of two of Hollywood's most famous producers: Irving Thalberg, the boy wonder' who became studio manager of Universal Pictures at the age of twenty and then went on to work with Louis B. Mayer as head of production in the MGM studios, and David O. Selznick, son of a film pioneer, who married Louis B. Mayer's daughter and never looked back. Thalberg was largely responsible for a consistently high standard of MGM scripts and productions in the late 'twenties and 'thirties, and presented Greta Garbo in Anna Christie and Camille and the Marx Brothers in A Night at the Opera. On his career Scott Fitzgerald based the life of Monroe Stahr in The Last Tycoon.

C.H.

Katherine Mansfield: The Memories of LM (Michael Joseph £3) LM, Ida Constance Baker, writes about her complex relationship with Katherine Mansfield from adolescence until Katherine's death in 1923. Her memories add much useful background to Middleton Murry's publitation both of her letters

to him and her Journal, as well as to Antony Alper's biography on which the author co-operated. Furthermore they describe part of Katherine Mansfield's life "of which I alone have knowledge" — an account free of too much supplementary interpretation, which stands as a testament to a remarkable friendship.

C.F.

Shadow of Swords Margot Lawrence (Michael Joseph £4.00) With the aid of many unpublished sources, new light is here shed on the life of Elsie Inglis (1864-1917), the determined suffragette and courageous doctor. Her most remarkable achievement came during World War I when she was largely responsible for extricating 13,000 men from Russia where they faced probable extermination during the Bolshevik turmoil.

Words and Occasions Lester B. Pearsons (Toronto University Press £4.75) An anthology of the writings and speeches of the Canadian Liberal party statesmen, Nobel Peace prizewinner, public servant and academic, covering the period 1924-1968. Mr Pearson prefaces many of his articles and speeches with modest notes and mildly witty asides.

G.G.

The War of the Running Dogs Noel Barber (Collins £2.25)

An account of the Mayalan Emergency, which lasted from 1948 to 1960 and ended with the defeat of the communist guerrillas, by the well-known journalist (and brother of the Chancellor of the Exchequer). Barber's books are less sensational and are better than his popular journalism. This one contains a great deal of detail on what-remains the only successful campaign fought against wellorganised communist insurgents.

G.G.

Severn Valley Steam Gerald Nabarro (Routledge and Kegan Paul £2.25; paperback £1.25)

For railway enthusiasts. Sir Gerald tells the story of the Severn Valley railway, opened in 1862, closed eventually in the Beeching reorganisation, and reopened in part, with old steam engines, in 1970. Splendidly illustrated piece of nostalgia, with a happy ending.

G.G.

The Licentious Soldiery Rupert CroftCooke (W. H. Allen £2.75) Unlike many autobiographers, Rupert Croft-Cooke has written a number of books about his life, dealing with a few years at a time but in no chronological order. Freely admitting he enjoyed the war, he here relates his experiences in the Army between 1940 and 1942. He is at pains to point out that it is not a war ', book but rather an account of the day-today trivial and tragic incidents of his training and Army life away from the front.

J.B.