Best of The Paperbacks

Fact:

The Splendour Of Greece,

by Robert Payne, is more than a book about the ancient monuments of this ancient land, it is a travel book as well, relating the new to the old. The author obviously loves and knows his subject; his book has been called a “synthesis of history, archaeology, topography, myth, legend and literature”. (Pan; 7/6.)

A Surgeon In Rome, By

George Sava, is based on the experiences of the author when he was Professor of Plastic Surgery at the University of Rome. (Pan; 5/6.) STYLE, by F. L. Lucas. If good writing style can be learnt, this writer is regarded as best qualified to teach it. Based on a series of lectures given at Cambridge where he is a Fellow of King’s College, Lucas writes with humour as well as in his own style.

The way men write, it is shown, can be even more important than what they write. The suicide of the Light Brigade at the Crimea is said to be the result of a misinterpretation of a battle order; Sir Roger Casement, so-called World War I traitor, is said to have been hanged by the misplacing of a comma. (Pan; 7/6.)

Profiles Of The Future,

by Arthur C. Clarke, a sort of latter day Jules Verne, who sees the day when man will conquer time, over come gravity and communicate across space. (Pan; 5/6.)

Exploring The Occult, By

Douglas Hunt, is what the title suggests: An excursion into haunt ings, black magic, hypnosis and other shenanigins. (Pan; 5/6.)

Religion:

Confess Your Sins, By John

R. W. Stott. This is one of a series by evangelical churchmen published under the auspices of the Evangelical Fellowship of Anglican Communion. (Hodder; 5/3.) JUNGLE PILOT, by Russell T.

Hitt, who tells the story of Nate Saint, an American who was one of five missionaries murdered in Ecuador in 1956. The author in corporates much of Saint’s own writing in the narrative. (Hodder; 7/6.)

Thrillers and Crime: THE BUSY BODY, by Elizabeth Ferrars. The heroine of this story married in haste and the excitement she got was not what was expected.

Fast moving, good writing and even, at times, funny. (Fontana; 4/-.)

Gently Where The Roads

GO, by Alan Hunter, whose hero is Superintendent Gently. (Pan; 4/-.)

Bony And The White

SAVAGE, by Arthur Upfield, is one of the last exploits of Detective- Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, being produced only a couple of years before his creator’s death. This adventure takes place in south-west Western Australia. (Pan; 5/6.)

Murder On The Orient

Express, Mrs. Mcginty’S

Dead, Ordeal By Innocence

and the PALE HORSE, all by Agatha Christie in 1934, 1952, 1958 and 1961, respectively. (Fontana; 6/- each.) CHARADE, by Peter Stone, is the story of a film of the same name, that is international in flavour, and amusing as well as mysterious. (Fontana; 6/-.) Fiction: THE SYSTEM, by John Burke, is adapted from the screenplay—a story of “cynical sex and flaring violence”. (Pan; 4/6.)

Scaramouche And Love At

ARMS, by Rafael Sabatini, who is enjoying a posthumous revival for his historical novels. These two cover the notorious Borgias and the French Revolution, respectively. (Pan; 7/6 and 5/6.)

The Violent Season, By

Robert Goulet, has a French- Canadian background and a Zola tang to it. When the lumberjacks return to their village after a season in the forests, it’s not to their wives but to the girls of the local brothel,

which has been set up under guise of a rosary-bead factory. (P 7/6.)

Mr. Standfast, By Jc

Buchan, in which Richard Ham the hero of The Thirty-Nine St continues his adventures. (P 7/6.)

The Glass Barrier, By :

Packer, is a slightly more sophisti ted and contemporary story of Soi Africa than the same writer’s Val of the Vines. (Pan; 7/6.) PASTORAL, by Nevil Shute, one of this author’s less metaphysi jobs and one of his best on the R. at war. (Pan; 5/6.) THE LONG SHIPS, a saga of Vikings, by Frans G. Bengtsson, 1 been made into a film spectacul It has been described as the st< that has everything—sex, fighti: travel and history. (Fontana; 8/- NAMBA, by Stuart Cloete, is departure from his usual books ab( South African pioneering. The setti is modern Africa and the proble are also contemporary. (Fontai 6/-.)