Books Briefly
Books Briefly Poking Fun THE PATIENT HAS THE FLOOR by Alistair Cooke Alfred A. Knopf. 204 pp. $16.95. Journalist Alistair Cooke, the urbane host of Masterpiece Theatre, has selected some of his...
...Cooke enjoys poking fun but is never mean...
...Whether he is addressing physicians, scholars, the House of Representatives, or architects, he is brief and witty...
...Whether he is talking about the American Revolution or Shakespeare, he succeeds in maintaining a light touch however serious the overtones...
...As a Park Service oldtimer explains, "Always, always, always there are leaks...
...Good entertainment for plane or vacation reading...
...The Federal Government's Park Service wants the islands for the Gulf Islands National Seashore and to preserve their environmental importance...
...Land Scam BARRIER ISLAND by John D. MacDonald Alfred A. Knopf...
...Journalist Alistair Cooke, the urbane host of Masterpiece Theatre, has selected some of his speeches of the last twenty years in this collection...
...As he tries to buy and bribe his way to respectability, he is thwarted by a decent real estate broker to whom honesty and honor are important...
...And there is always some smartass little dipstick hustler jumping in and getting title and making big plans, hoping to screw his government out of some money...
...He is at his most eloquent in his plea for respecting the English language and dumping buzzwords and jargon...
...While there are two ugly murders in Barrier Island, they are not the pivotal focus of this novel about a land swindle involving some islands off the Mississippi coast...
...Here the hustler is Tuck Loomis, driven by greed and a lust for power...
...229 pp...
...The time to rinse the mind free of verbal cant cannot begin too early...
...His American guru was H.L...
...the islands create a low-salinity, high-nutrition habitat for coastal marine life...
...Educated in both England and the United States, he became an American citizen in 1941...
...A fast-paced tale of greed, both petty and immense...
...Mencken, and Cooke's astringent disdain for pomposity reflects Mencken's influence...
Vol. 50 • August 1986 • No. 8
