SUNDAY, DECElER , 1923TH
"HE MICHIGAN DAILY
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IN WHICH THE OBSERVER TACK- Terms of Conquest, by Howard Vin-
LES THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT cent O'Brien. (Little, Brown, $2.), is
PROBLEM the sort of book which Dr. Frank
Christmas gifts may be roughly Cranc might praise as a tale of high
classified under three heads: things moral, steadfast endeavor, and de-
that can be worn or eaten, things served success. Dr. Crane would be
that cluter ip the house, and books. aite right-but he should add that
Having had no experience with the it is the sort of novel which has turn-
first since Santa Claus went out of ed American fiction into a paradise
style and being disbarred from the for moralists, Epworth leaguers, and
second by a kitchenette apartment. plain damn fools. The hard working
the Observer will confine himself to young printer and his wife Ivy;, the
the third. Of course, the unkind per- ability and conceit of the printer, his
son trying to find a place to lay his will to succeed, and his arrival com-
hat in the said kitchenette flat, might ? fortably near the top make up the
remark that in the Observer's case material of a typical American story.
objects of the third class automatical- There is a practical ti. e. crooked)
ly graduate into the second. . . But politician whom the hero conciliates,
discussions of metaphysics are out of and a few other minor characters,
place here. such as son and daughter, a dreamy
And so the Observer will try his "scholar," and a few friends, but not
hand at solving the gift problem, each one person in the whole story lives a
try being limited by an arbitrary limit life free from the curse of the plot.
of $2.50, on the ground that suggest- There is a little variation, of course,
ions involving higher sums require and the book makes entertaining read-
lengthy explanation and argument. ing.
Such explanation is to be found in Michael's Evil Deeds, by E. Phillips
longer reviews written by the Observ- Oppenheim, and published by Little,
er or his wife, who insists that her Brown & Co., is another variation on
position as family treasurer gives her the theme of the stupenduously brainy
an inside position on matters of this criminal who is outwitted by an even
sort. . more brilliant detective. To the Ob-
Let us begin, therefore, with a book server it suggests Craig Kennedy in
about books, since it will supply such the days when Reeve was still expert-
information as this contritbutionfinenting, but he can easily conceive a
lacks. What Books Can Do For You. dozen people reading it to four who
by Jesse Lee Bennett (Geo. I. Doran will stick by even an H. G. Wells
Co., $2.) is exactly thething desired. -omance. For the right reader it would
and possesses the great virtue of be- te "great dope"-and such right read-
ing different from anything else to 'rs make up an alarming percentage
be found. Its purpose is to survey if those to whom Christmas packages
d rn,,,,, itust be sent.
A Most Chcrished Gill
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M UIVI13 "VrtS 11 y 1' 11i , 1 V
cosmology to adventure stories, to.
list the best of theis, and give a back-
ground for the reader who may wish
to consult them. There are eleven
chapters on the general features of
human knowledge that call to mind
Professor Robinson's "Mind in the
Making" and "Humanizing of Know]-I
edge." They are not easy reading,
but they are profitable, and can sbe
taken in instalments of any length;
the Obesrver read them on the "L"
and street-car. Following these chap-
ters are 50 pages of book-lists, be-
ginning with discovery and adven-
ture and ending with books for chil-
dren. They can be used either as a
guide for buying, or as finding lists on
one's pilgrimages to the public li-
brary; either way they will be use-
fut. Mtaybe they appeal to the Oh-
server particularly because he is lazy;
smaybe because, like many other folks,
he is too busy to give long and deep
thought to the selection of his read-
ing. Anyhow, he likes them. . .
Having thus praised a boor tsatF
recsottmends one's reading, 'e onayE
jethroniele the arrival of three voltini
wihch Mr. Bennett is not apt to ati-
vise, but which nevertheless will en-
joy more than a onsall measure of
popularity. The first of these, Fannie
Fox's Cook Pook (little, Brown & Co.)
was both a surprise and a puzzle to
the Observer until his wife took it
off his hands. Since that time he has
eaten biscuits, stews, soups, desserts,E
and potatoes, all done a la Mrs. Fox.:
He conquered all of them, and even
expressed a willingness to meet the
group again; an admission which to,
biu seems sufficient reconmendation
for a book he has sampled deeply,
though has not read.
The otters are novels, of the sort
the Observer reads when his high-
brow friends are sure not to drop ink
f'r the eveCig. One of thei, The
A much better book, since it is both
tonest and convincing, is Luther
\fichols, by Mary S. Watts (Macmillan,
$2.). Luther Nichols is an average
American boy-that- is, the average
boy born of foreign parents and liv-
ing. in a country district, who gets
tittle education and moves to a city-
Cincinnati in this case. The boy leaves
his father's truck farm, gets himself
a job in a livery barn that has be-
ome a livery garage and while his.
est friend, Roy McArdle, is away
to the war marries Roy's girl. And
then, with Roy back, Luther, who did
his bit at Camp Sherman, finds him-
self a job in a private family as
chauffeur, while his wife goes into the
millinery business. There is then an
affair with the daughter of the house,
Juliet Ordway.
So real, so convincingly alive is
Luther Nichols that the Observer
strongly suspects that only to a small
extent is he a boy of fiction. His
simplicity and humaneness are part
of real life, just as the things he
,ocs are the things done day in and
day out, fromtMaine to New Mexico,
in villages, towns. and cities. Mrs.
Watts does not tell his brilliantly, but
she tels it well, and the slowness of
her writing fits the slowness of Luth-
er. In this sense of realism, there-
fore, Luther Nichols ranks with Main
Street and Winesburg, since it re-
ports honestly the lives of ordinary
people. It has more of real stuff than
a thottsand volumes such as those by
Oppenheim, and the Observer wishes
it success.
A final glance over the bookshelves
reminds the Observer that he should
not close his suggestions without
mentioning at least one true gift book
-a volume that is at once both beau-
tifil in appearance and significant in
cotent. And there is none which
so completely fills these requirements
0Continued on Page Seven)
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