Sir Robert Menzies by Sir Percy Joske, Kt. Angus & Robertson. Printed by Hedges & Bell.

The trendy image of our senior publisher is not enhanced by this shoddy production. The author appears to be emphasising numerous lines and even paragraphs by the use of bold type; but then we realise that these are photoset correction lines that have emerged from the processor with a heavier density, but which have been stripped in regardless. The two lines of the centred title are not quite centred, and for that matter not parallel either. Page numbers, flush left and right at the foot, wander nervously in and out of the margins. Some of the turn­round illustrations face right, but others left. An overlooked caption to a photograph on page four is tossed into the head margin of page five. A portrait drawing on the front of the jacket is repeated in reverse on the back, as if left and right were all the same to this subject. What we infer from this book is that nobody in the publisher’s office could have cared for it. There is no worse fate.

Style Manual, third edition. Australian Government Publishing Service. Typeset by Dudley E. King; printed by Wilke.

A warm welcome to the third edition (revised by John Pilson) of this useful book, a mine of sound advice on printing and typographical practice. It should be compulsory reading for everyone involved with print. The third edition stays in the dumpy AS format of the second edition of 1972, conceived early during the love affair with international sizes. Whereas A4 and BS work well with books, AS has the unlovely look of the short and fat. I have never cared for the Univers Extra Bold headings in this book combined with a Times Roman text. The pages look stressed and over-emphatic. Compare them with those of Judith Butcher’s fine book Copy-editing (Cambridge), in which there isn’t a word in bold throughout, but which is a model of lucid arrangement.

Light Horse by Elyne Mitchell. Macmillan Australia. Designed by Guy Mirabella; typeset by Trade Composition; printed in Hong Kong.

An almost square format, pushed to a big (24.1 x 24. 7cm) size, obliged the designer to specify a 36 cm measure for the text of this book, which does not make easy reading. But the many illustrations are well handled, and although the colour plates are vivid to say the least the work has an inviting appearance. So far as I am concerned, however, it is damned to hell by Letraset chapter titles that are not straight: letters not upright, letters not quite sitting on the baseline. This should be declared a notifiable disease! I am at a loss to know how any publisher can spend a fortune on a worthwhile book and neglect such details.

A Cook’s Tour of the National Gallery of Victoria. Hyland House, for the National Gallery Women’s Association. Designed by Alison Forbes; typeset by Meredith Trade Lino; printed by Wilke.

A fashionable cookbook illustrated with reproductions of paintings and other works of art on culinary themes sounds faintly vulgar, and in the hands of a lesser designer it might have been a disaster. But with impeccable taste Alison Forbes has made a stylish book of it, so that such unlikely companions as Grace Cossington-Smith’s tender ‘Quaker Girl’ and the facing ‘Marrow au Gratin’ cease to seem surprising. Alison Forbes makes it all look so easy! Generous pages and a confident use of white space; illustrations and text working together without strain; and one typeface, Palatino, throughout, leaded with fine judgment, and delighting the eye with its beautiful italic. High praise also to Stephen West, who photographed the art works, and to Wilke for the printing, the colour, and the black and white – both excellent.

The Bushwackers Australian Song Book. Sphere Books in association with Anne O’Donovan. Designed by Pam Brewster; typeset by STL Industries; printed by Griffin Press.

This large-format paperback joins the words and tunes of Australian bush songs with drawings by Lionel Lindsay, Norman Lindsay, Percy Leason, Frank Mahony, and others. It is a popular field in which knockabout sentimentality often takes over; but this book has dignity, while lacking nothing in humour and nostalgia. The selection and placement of the illustrations have been lovingly thought out, the music is beautifully engraved by S. H. Newitt, and the printing by Griffin is as clean as a whistle. The only thing to which I take exception is the large, untidy signature of Slim Dusty beneath the foreword.