New Sunday Book Session

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 802, 3 December 1954, Page 31

New Sunday Book Session

"()F all the needs a book has, the chief need is that it be readable." So said Anthony Trollope in his Autobiography. Fortunate 19th Century! The stream of published matter had not reached the spate it is in now, so that it was possible to choose new books fairly easily-deciding which ones to buy and make one’s friends. Nowadays, it is more likely that the common reader walks into his favourite book

shop or library and staggers out again, made dizzy by the plethora of books about which he knows absolutely nothing. For him, then, the NZBS has decided to revive a book review session under the title of Books, The new programme will have a different form from the old ZB Book Review. The Listener asked Dick Wade, Supervisor of Programmes for the Commercial Division, to tell us his ideas for the new session, since it is his brain-child. Books is to have only one reviewer a week, who will deal with up to half a dozen books each session, depending on the relative interest of the books under review. However, Books will not be reviewing too many books of a specialist sort. It is felt that students of, say, economic history or religious philosophy, will no doubt find out about publications of interest to them without needing to consult the NZBS Commercial Division for guidance. Books will aim at the general reader. When the session begins from 1ZB at 6,0 p.m.-and from the other ZBs at 7.0 p.m.-on Sunday, December 12, the first reviewer will be R. T. Robertson, ‘Lecturer in English at Otago University, and formerly Talks Officer at 4YA and 4YC. The following week the speaker will be John Reid, of Auckland, Senior Lecturer in English at Auckland University College, and a well-known contributor to critical dis-