EASY TO READ BUT NOT TO REVIEW

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 208, 18 June 1943, Page 7

EASY TO READ BUT NOT TO REVIEW

SWEET BEULAH LAND: By _ Roderick Finlayson. The Griffin Press, Auckland. HIS is an easy book to read, but not an easy book to review. It is not very fair to say that Frank Sargeson is v ritten all over it, or Saroyan, or Sherwood Anderson, but short of page-long extracts that is the quickest way of conveying an impression of its contents and style. Mr. Finlayson is more direct and simple than Sargeson, is just funny where Sargeson is humorous, and just sad where Sargeson is tragic. He neither sees so clearly nor probes so deeply, but he either derives from him or has used the same models; a little less successfully, But that, as we began by saying, is ungenerous criticism. Of the 15 episodes in the collection, at least five stand firmly on their own foundations, and the others, though flimsier, amount to something collectively. They are New Zealand, if not much of it-either in height or in depth-and for whatever is authentic in letters or in art we should always be grateful. But it is a pity when a writer who is feeling his way goes to a printer engaged in the same occupation. The Griffin Press knows how to print, but knowledge is not sufficient without facilities. Nor was it safe to depend on the selling power of the

deliberately scatty cover. A book to buy all the same. THE RADIO RECEIVER RADIO RECEIVER DESIGN: By K. R. Sturley, Ph.D., B.Sc., etc. Chapman and Hall, London. NEw books on radio are singularly scarce in wartime, though more research is being carried out in radio science than ever before. Technicians and scientists will, therefore, welcome the. arrival from London of this up-to-date account of receiver design fundamentals, Modern procedure is described in detail for each receiver stage in turm Part 1, just received, deals with aerials, amplifications, frequency changing, oscillators and detectors. Part 2 will include power supplies, receiver measurements, television, and frequency modulation. The author makes full use of mathematics, expressing every relationship with more accuracy and conciseness than words alone would give. A useful note on Fourier analysis is appended. To the radiophysicist this is a gem on the slagheap of over-simplified popular radio literature. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NEW ZEALAND: LAND OF EVERYTHING. Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. A PICTORIAL survey not very happily named. The illustrations have been well selected, and they are certainly well reproduced, but it is a small offering for 3/6. * * * SONG OF YOUTH: An Epic Poem of Five Cantos. By Lindsay M. Constable. NEITHER an epic nor a poem, but five pages of verbal meanderings round the author's ego. Here are the last five lines: Go to it Youth, you know your part! The Past has set the stage! Big Ben has struck the hour; the Future rests with you. % x * (1) WARTIME COOKING AND PRESERVING IN NEW ZEALAND. By M. and W. Carman. (2) WARTIME POULTRYKEEPING IN NEW ZEALAND. A. H. and A. W. Reed, Dunedin and Wellington. WO useful booklets written in New Zealand for New Zealanders. Nothing new in them, but they at least cover our own experiences and our own needs. * * % CHILDREN’S AILMENTS: A MANUAL FOR PARENTS. A. H. and A. W. Reed, Wellington Not for all parents, but a god-send to those who believe and don’t know. A compilation, with acknowledgments, from accepted authorities. Indexed and well arranged.