BRIEFER MENTION
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Fresh Every Hour, by John Peter Toohey (12mo, 256 pages; Boni & Liveright: $2) enjoyed a highly successful run in the Saturday Evening Post; and no wonder: for although the Tired Business Man would probably smile a trifle bitterly at the extravagant success that meets Jimmy Martin's ingenious ventures at every corner, the irreparably unsophisticated and belligerently optimistic business girl or housewife must surely find Jimmy's colourful career as press agent an invigorating refreshment, and love him for his enthusiasm, his never-say-die vitality, his budding romance chastely suggested, his uncanny smartness hiding the pure ideals which emerge suddenly on page 248.
Dancers in the Dark, by Dorothy Speare (12mo, 290 pages; Doran: $1.75). If this book had been written as a satire it would have been inimitable. It is almost Daisy Ashford grown up—but not very far up. Is it possible that the reading public reaches full mental bloom at the age of fifteen? Or maybe the book is intended only for those in their first or second childhood.
To the Last Man, by Zane Grey (12mo, 311 pages; Harper: $2) is a sprightly tale with blood oozing from every page. Life in the Tonto Basin was one glad sweet carnival of killings and though the psychological reactions of the characters to these stirring events seem singularly uncomplicated, doubtless the people of Arizona are like that—they have not yet issued a dementi. Zane Grey writes fluently and never allows the rush of action to betray him into using an unusual or unexpected word.
Explorers of the Dawn, by Mazo de la Roche (12mo, 292 pages; Knopf: $2.50) is a story of three little boys—such as never were on land or sea. Their gracefully narrated adventures make pleasant sugar-plum reading. To be sure they live in an English Cathedral Town which suddenly expands to a city and in the next chapter shrinks to a rural village. But why stickle over geography, or even over American idioms dropped into the mouths of English babes? The book has charm, and charm, like beauty, is its own excuse for being.
Czechoslovak Stories, edited with an introduction by Sarka B. Hrbkova (12mo, 330 pages; Duffield: $1.90). Humour, pathos, and tragedy are in the pages of these stories, some of which are written with good-natured charm, some with almost violent vigour, and most of which have a vividness and intensity that force attention, though at times the subject-matter repels. Considered as a whole, they show a mastery of the short-story art, and would make a notable contribution to the literature of any country.
Kinfolks, by Ann Cobb (12mo, 82 pages; Houghton Mifflin: $1.50). The author does not call these bits of Kentucky mountain life poetry. It may be they are too ragged for that, but Ann Cobb is skilful in transcribing emotions and the shades of character which go to make the mountaineer at once unique and universal. The language, as well as the happy picturesqueness and humanity of the verses, is that of a homespun Chaucer of the hills.
