Intermountain Jewish news., 1925-12-03
First Aid to Book Clubs

Mag Lamberton Becker, ,chose distinguished condae,
Iof tie RcadoysGuide column has nadc Il rarely deIight
fH feature Of The Saturday Reriep Of Literature recently
received request from, Book Ctb for list of books
meeting hc fot'o,cng requirements:
"Olp noueis must BE- not year oh and of re-
spectacle standard Of merit. We uery tired of
lintod reiLs, though do not think pr,ish Is
t possible TO get together tceHisr ,cort-iutie
norcls, Interesting b neither i,,sipid indecent"
Mrs Beckcr's reply seems to meet the needs of our
ocn book clubs IN this city happily, that the BOOK
NOOK ttkag The liberty of rcprintig her statement
from the Saturday Rerieic.
So far as l am concerned the Great American Novel
has just been written by Norsemnn, Johan Bojer
author of The Great Hunger "Thc Emgrants Cen
tury) makes world history of Morse settlement in
North Dakota from its beginnings in the dssatisfacons
of handful of villagers the ford through the pro-
of assimilation. Bojer be the only Scan
dinavian writer without the Nobel Prize; this book will
doubt lose him that distinction Then there is the
late Nobel winner, Ladislas Reymonts "The Peasants
(Knopf) completed in four volumes. Never did the
weather soak into book into this one; city
dweller should be and again reminded that the life
of real counryman is permeated by the elements he
manages so to keep at arms length. Two American
novests reach their highest technical development this
year: in "The Professors House" (Knop) Villa Gather
brings her most delicate art to bear upon tracing the
pattern of human life So after her methods,
fully matured does Ellen Glasgow in Barren Ground
doubleday, Page) So does beginner Lorna Doone
Beers, in Prairie Fires" Dutton) me the best first
novel of the year. takes up the struggle of the farmer
where Growth of the Soil left o-for Isak had only
nature fight other But prairie Fires" is
tract for e -Rsstsan League but the years of
young wcnlans life in which a pattern begins to take
shape.
The Harper award to Anne Parrsh's "The Peren-
na Bachelor has brought into the foreground the work
of writer of whom have been hoping much since the
appearance of her decatey satric study "A Pocketul
of Poses. This is of the most popular awards for
years: everyone seems pleased "Wd Geese (Dodd
Mead), with which Martha Ostenso almost much
as the Nobel, has singularly maddening villain His
daughter throws AK at him on page 241 and until
qucksand gets him page 352 the reader reflects that
what female education most needs is better marksman-
ship. Reading Floyd Dell's Runaway (Doran) kept
wondering whether the in "The Moon and Sixpence"
might not have felt something like this supposing he
had used the other half of his ticket to Taht-and sup
posing that that human crocodile could feel at ALL For
Mr.. Des runaway not only there but back: it is
la study of the rebound from radicalism
"Thc Misty Flats" by Helen Woodbury. (Little,
Brown), tells what happened to girl whose mother had
the ow-down trick of saying Don't do that it hurts
mother. For protest and always shall that this is the
owest-down of any of the tricks played by parents This
is an excellent first novel Possession" by Louis Brom
field (Stokcs) carries on the story and fus the prom
Use of his Green Bay Tree Lucy Furman, in "The
Glass Window (Littlc, Brown) brings another echo
from the Hindman Settlement in the Kentucky noun
ains, with than in the others In Andrew
Bride of Paris" (ioughon Miflin), Henry Sydnor Har
rson shows why young folks leave America-and
return. BREAD and JAM" by Nalbro BARLEY CDoran),
has the same sort of pull her "A Mans Woman
The novel that taught that the Satcvepost out
on Thursdays. at the stand waiting, usually; and
yet both this and the novel capitalize of the
dearest decisions of middle little Ships,
Iby Kathleen Norris doubleday, Pagc) sympahcticay
reveals life and its problems lived through in an
American Catholic family t .- -t-
l thought the authentic Byron scandal could
be treated 50 respectfully in f. Barrngtons GLORIOUS
Apollo" (Dodd Mead) don't yet just how she
lagos to slide "Asare into the minds of the unsophis
tcated without jarring the works. Byrons Assyrian
comes down like the wolf in William Stearns Davis's
'sHunting the Bones of experienced phol