Recent paperbacks
James Hughes-Onslow
Ways of Escape Graham Greene (Penguin £1.50). A second autobiography by the Spec- tator's first film critic. He watched 400 films in the 1930s and wrote four novels: the films pro- vided an escape from the young novelist's melan- choly. They did the future scriptwriter no harm either. The Penguin Guide to the Law John Pritchard (Penguin £6.95). Crashed your car, neighbours keeping you awake, setting up a small business, making a will, getting the sack or getting mar- ried? The comprehensive handbook for the layman. The Garden Room Priscilla Boniface (HMSO £4.95). Conservatories came into fashion with Victorian affluence but went out again with mounting fuel bills. Skin pallor and colonial pineapples had something to do with n, too. Quaint Edwardian photography. The Complete Handbook of Video David Owen and Mark Dunton (Penguin £4.95). How to choose your system and, for the very clever, how it works. This also contains advice on building a library, understanding the law, video security systems and making erotic home movies.
A Poor Man's House Stephen Reynolds (OUP £2.95). Reynolds forsook educated society in 1906 and joined a fishing community in Devon. Only poor people, he says, have that balance bet" ween knowledge and experience which makes for wisdom. Roy Hattersley's intro approves.
C. Day-Lewis: An English Literary Life Sean Day-Lewis (Unwin £4.50). A biography of the late Poet Laureate by his son. An admirablY dispassionate portrait of a complex life With sideways glances at most of the leading literary figures of his time. A Lasting Joy: An Anthology chosen and in- troduced by C. Day-Lewis (Unwin £1.95). These poems were read by Cecil Day-Lewis in a BB' television series recorded before his death in 19/2 and broadcast shortly afterwards.
A Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations Coln- piled by Jonothan Green (Pan •£2.50). Seven thousand sayings uttered since 1945 listed by sub' jects with an index of famous names. H. G. Wells's last words were 'Go away. I'm all right.' Who said 'I will do anything to initiate world peace'? Jayne Mansfield. '1 counted them all out and I counted them all back': The Battle For The Falklands Brian Hanrahan and Robert Fox (BBC £1.95). The col- lected dispatches by the BBC's war heroes. Hanrahan started as a photographic stills clerk, says the BBC blurb, while Fox is a donnish figure. The First Casualty: From the Crimea to Viet- nam, the War Correspondent as Hero, Pro- pagandist and Myth Maker Phillip KnightleY (Quartet £4.95). You need to be a lot more devious to report the truth than to spread pro" paganda. The moral dilemmas of uncovering the facts or covering them up. Abroad: British Literary Travelling Between the Wars Paul Fussell (OUP £2.95). The good old days when exotic frontiers could be crossed with a bit of cunning and when all promising writers, including D. H. Lawrence, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Peter Fleming, Robert Byron and Rebecca West, wrote about their travels.
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