D IGBY A NDERSON The Sydney Horler Omnibus of Excitement by Sydney
Horler (Hodder & Stoughton. Charity shop 50p). Arthur Mee’s Book of the Flag: Island and Empire by Arthur Mee (Hodder & Stoughton, 1941. Charity shop 60p, originally 12s 6d).
Every time you read a newly written and published book, one reflecting the exhibitionist, vicious culture of this age, you are not reading a better older book, a Dostoevsky, Waugh or Faulkner. Every time you buy a new book, you are not buying 20 older books from Age Concern. For those of us who do not buy modern books, the best book of the year is the find of the year. A find is an author previously unknown and a good find is one who was, as were most of the older authors, prolific, for that find offers immediate good reading and the promise of lots more to hunt down. The first Innes, Cyril Hare or Freeman Wills Croft is both a joy and a spur. Of course the first-rate authors, the Haggards, Sappers, Orczys and Wrens, have long since been found, but even the third-rate are better than today’s books. This year my finds are, for novels, The Sydney Horler Omnibus with four novels: Chipstead of the Lone Hand, The Spy, Princess after Dark and Horror’s Head. For more serious reading, something rather sounder than the recently republished Our Island Story, Mee’s Book of the Flag, an ideal present for a godson.
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