New Zealand Books In Print, Wellington. 1964. Price, Milburn, 86pp., Í0/-. Reviewed by H. B. Rennie.

To attempt a review of this nature is to attempt to match one's own knowledge of New Zealand books against the resources of the Associated Booksellers of New Zealand and the research of their compiler, J. E. Traue.

Unfortunately. Mr. Traue comes off second best. In fact, the Booksellers' Association would be well advised to describe any future publication as "Selected New Zealand Books In Print."

Certainly progress has been made. Certainly in this, the third edition, we have a better index and an attractive and durable cover. What we do not have is completeness.

The limits set in the Introduction are narrow enough, but even within them surprising gaps can be found by the casual browser.

In the field best known to this reviewer, paperback editions, Mr. Traue has failed to trace what a conversation with any really good bookseller should have revealed. This, too. when an entry into paperbacks is gained by only a handful of New Zealand writers. For such diverse books as Katherine Mansfield's "Bliss" and Alan Curnow's "New Zealand Verse," Penguin paperbacks arc the only source. The bookseller who seeks W. H. Oliver's "Story of New Zealand" will find the hardback volume, but not the paperback, listed.

On the local scene it is difficult to be so certain. New Zealand books have a distressing tendency to sell out before publication or linger unsold and grubby on bookshop shelves for years. The list is good for finding an occasional little-known publication. But when we have, with Mr, Traue's collaboration, repudiated gratis publications, school and parish histories, many Government publications, most maps, some school books, and all but a few annual statistical reports omitted . . . perhaps we may feel that we can do without the list as well.