Laurence Gilding is to be warmly congratulated on successfully carrying out the tasks he set himself in his new work The Book of Sea Rescue (Frederick Warne, los. 6d.).

He describes the work of ±e life-boat service, of Trinity House, of H.M.

Coastguard, of the air-sea rescue services and of life-saving societies in other countries. Although the book has only 102 pages it is an informative and valuable guide. Mr. Gilding explains in the simplest of terms why life-boats are constructed in the way they are; what is the purpose of various aids to life-saving, such as parachute flares, echo sounders and line-throwing pistols, and how all these devices work. There are also accounts of some of the more famous rescues carried out by life-boats in the past.

The book is well illustrated both with photographs and with Mr. Gilding's own drawings, and to anyone who is beginning a study of the problems of sea rescue around our coasts no better or simpler introduction could be offered.

The Lutterworth Press has done an excellent job in producing My Favourite Stories of Courage (i2s. 6d.). The selection ranges from an unvarnished account of a man lost in the Australian outback in the 18705 to the work of such a distinguished writer as Cecil Woodham Smith. One of the 10 tales told in detail is that of the remarkable rescue from the Daunt Rock lightvessel by the Ballycotton life-boat in 1936. Another describes the winter spent alone in the Arctic by a former member of the Committee of Management of the R.N.L.I., Augustine Courtauld—an exploit described by the author, David Howarth, as the greatest in modern exploration. The tension throughout Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic and the final stages of the ascent of Everest as told by Sir Edmund Hillary are effectively conveyed in a book which is both well produced and admirably edited.

The World's Greatest Sea Adventures (Odhams, 2is.), by Commander John Kerans, D.S.O., R.N., M.P., is also a widely ranging selection of adventure stories. It includes Commander Kerans' account of the way in which he brought the frigate Amethyst over 150 miles to the mouth of the Yangtse river past the Chinese Communist batteries in 1949. A comparable story also told is that of the escape of the Polish submarine Orzel from the Baltic in the early days of the last war. The stories extend over the centuries to include St. Paul's shipwreck in the Mediterranean and the remarkable gallantry shown by Lieut. John F. Kennedy of the U.S. Navy in rescuing members of his crew after his motor torpedo boat had been rammed by a Japanese warship off Guadalcanal Island in 1943. The life-boat story included is that of the famous launch of the Lynmouth life-boat after she had been transported by horse and man-power up Countisbury Hill, over Exmoor and down Porlock Hill in 1899..