17 MAY 1957, Page 24

Sahara Adventure, by J. Mortimer Sheppard (Jarrolds, 21s.): another professional

American writer with another wife and three smallish children takes the family on a world trip. The title is grossly misleading, only forty-five of the 208 pages being devoted to the crossing of the Sahara in a land-yacht, and the rest consisting of snippets of information and domestic chit-chat about various countries in Europe, Africa and South America which the caravan passed through on its speedy, superficial travels. Trite, phony, bristling with racial consciousness, sweeping con- demnations, pointless anecdotes and ludicrous opinions, and as near illiterate as makes no odds, it heads my list of Travel Books We Could Do