Unremarkable book on something
p. 99 · Read in the full issue
something or other!
The dust jacket of “In One Life time” says that the book is “more than just another general view of the territory of Papua New Guinea”.
But having said what the book isn’t, the writer of the blurb unfortunately does not say what the book is.
It’s a book of text and pictures, neither of which dominates and neither of which is remarkable.
Maslyn Williams gives us a half dozen brief biographical sketches of New Guineans who have achieved something, and although he describes them himself as “simple essays”, his style is often so simple as to make one wonder whether he is directing his text at high school students. His biographies, to be sure, are invariably illustrated by some of the pictures— but the addition of others is not always relevant.
It’s not luxurious enough to be a coffee table book and probably too expensive to give away at trade fairs.
Probably it would be most at home in the waiting rooms and libraries of Australian Government offices abroad where it might hope to show somebody that New Guinea is a big island, with a lot of different people in it, all progressing towards some thing or other.—Sl. (IN ONE LIFETIME. F. W. Cheshire. 54.95).