.* Nowadays, a travel-book, however well-conceived, has no chance of
emerging from the ruck unless its author is himself a man .of conspicuous personality or achievement. Professor Arnold Toynbee's Journey to China is a case in point. In Impacts, by Douglas Goldring (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 7s. 6d.), which consists of are of travel in the United States and elsewhere, we are not, conscious of having to do with more than a commonplace human being, Who employs his time in wandering about the world and' then writing about his pere- grinations. The sections dealing with Northern Italy and Sweden are the best here, and there is a chapter about Ibiza (one of the smaller Balearics) which makes one tremble lest the tourist swarm should be charmed into settling there. All in all, a readable but undistinguished book.
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