The Latest In Brief

In Mine Own Heart Is The

third book of autobiography by Mel bourne writer Alan Marshall, who has already produced / Can Jump Puddles and This Is The Grass. This one takes him up to the war and in cludes chapters about his boarding house keeping, fortune-telling and ex periences as a male Dorothy Dix in one of the Australian women’s maga zines. As always, he is easy to read, full of interest, common sense, com passion and honesty. As always, he comes through as a thoroughly nice bloke. In Mine Own Heart is almost a bedside book on the philosophy of living and liking it. (F. W. Cheshire. 27/6.)

With Gently Smiling Jaws

is a novel of a New Zealand girl’s adventures in New York, writ ten, oddly enough by a New Zealand girl, Shirley Maddock, who once worked in New York. It’s meant to be light and bright and perhaps a little mad, and it is all those things.

But it is also rather pointless. An episode or two about the adventures of a New Zealand girl in New York don’t make a novel. (Collins, Auckland. 22/6.) WINDOWS OF FAME, designed as a book of tributes to Austra lian war heroes, is a good idea that doesn’t quite come off. The idea is built around the stained-glass win dows of the Australian War Memorial at Canberra, the panels of which portray Australian fighting men, and one nurse. Each window illustrates the warrior’s personal qualities, such as coolness, audacity, endurance, decision, chivalry, loyalty, resourcefulness. The glass windows are reproduced in colour in this hand some little book, and in the text author Bruce Harding sets out to tell true stories of the two wars which he thinks best illustrate these personal qualities. There is the story of “Simp son and his donkey, an account of the New Guinea Coastwatchers, the sinking of the Emden, and many more, some well known and others

which will be read for the first tim by most people. Unfortunately Mi Harding is not the man to write th text, which is pedestrian. At th hands of a more skilful writer thi book could have been a movin tribute. (Lansdowne Press. 32/6.)

Hopeton High, By Bria

James, described as a “novel to b relished by teachers and by every body who has ever gone to school’ is supposed to be a satire on th workings of the Parents’ and Citizen: association of the Hopeton Hig!

School. It is unsuccessful, either a satire or as entertainment. (Angus & Robertson. 21/-,) SON OF MARS, by Sydney write Mungo MacCallum, who is note, particularly for his radio features, i a successful novel of a man wh, bears a grudge against the world an, of the tragedy that surrounds it. Th background is Sydney. (Ure Smith. 25/-.)

Disturbing Element, Th,

first instalment of Xavier Herbert’ autobiography, might better hav been titled “The Rake’s Progress’

Herbert is nothing if not frank abou his youth, during which he seems t have had many kinds of experiences Sex, one way or another, was oni of the problems of his existence.

Whether this kind of thing wil continue to the end of his life w, won’t know unless we do in fact ge another instalment, for Disturbin, Element breaks off when Herbert ii hardly out of the callow youth stage Even up to that period he had a grea variety of experiences (non-sexual which have gone to make this an en tertaining book even for those oven seas readers who might not know or even care—that Herbert is tin author of the best sellers Capricornia. and Soldiers’ Women. (F. W. Cheshire. 30/-.) BIG FAT TUESDAY, by Viviau Cunnington. This author is 5 ft < in. tall and full of bounce. S*i are his stories if this collection ii any indication. He writes about dogs parrots, other birds and sometime: people, with humour, occasions pathos, and understanding. Ver;good. (F. W. Cheshire. 30/-.)