The present Pope has, in general, not had a good press, thanks mainly to his unbending stance on such issues as women priests and his seeming auhoritarian outlook. His important role in Eastern European affairs, however, is increasingly recognised, particularly his key part in overthrowing Communist rule in Poland. Jonathan Kwitny shows that the Solidarity movement owed him a lot, and he also dismisses the theory that the Vatican acted in collusion with the American Government. Karol Wojtyla may, in certain respects, seem a man of the traditional European Right, but if so he embodies some of its most honourable aspects, and his humanity and social conscience are undoubted. Like so many American biographies, this one crowds its canvas with detail so that it is sometimes hard to distinguish individual figures or overall outlines.
The series Phoenix Short Stories includes The Red Room and Other Stories by H.G. Wells; An Imaginative Woman by Thomas Hardy; Love and Friendship and Other Writings by Jane Austen; The Rich Boys and Other Stories by Scott Fitzgerald and Stories Please! Everyman's Favourite Short Stories selected by Hilary Austin.
The weak link in these is the Austen volume, which consists of fragments and oddsand-ends and really does not justify inclusion under this label. Hilary Austin's anthology includes works by Poe, Maupassant ("Boul de Suif"), Wilde, Kipling, Hardy, Chekhov, Conan Doyle, Katherine Mansfield, M.R. James and finally Dylan Thomas ("A Child's Christmas in Wales"). Good value at £3.40 sterling each.