"Skywriting"

 “Skywriting” by James Gilbert. 269 pp. 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″. (Michael Joseph Ltd., 52, Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3EF. £4.95.)

This is a collection of extracts from some of the better books about Hying, including ballooning and other lighter-than-air machines, written by authors whose work ranks among the literature of aviation, edited by the Editor of Pilot. The idea has been tried before, with motoring and motor-racing quotations, and I am not particularly in favour of this type of presentation. But of writers whose books merit reading in their entirety, I am pleased to see that, among those favoured by Gilbert, are the everreadable Cecil Lewis, who was interviewed on 1313C TV recently, the equally-gifted aviationwriter Harold Penrose, and such names as the pioneer C. C. Turner, Nevil Shute of Airspeed memory, the amateur pilot Richard Garnett, and such famed RAF and record-breaking pilots as Lindburgh, Geoffrey de Havilland, Richthofen, Chichester, Hillary, the poet-minded Saint Exupery, etc., etc. So this is an enthralling “browsing” book and I also found the bibliography and acknowledgements an interesting section of this book! – W.B.