Playboy Pook

Book excerpt: Beneath the mirth and action of Playboy Pook is a serious attempt by the author to recapture those lush days of England before the war, and to get inside the minds of the young people who were fortunate enough to enjoy that fascinating era. The book is a sequel to Pook’s Tender Years, enabling the reader to meet again some delightful friends of Pook’s childhood and those adults like Aunt Mabel whose impression on youngsters remains throughout their lives. And no Pook book is complete without Honners, the arrogant little nobleman, whose efforts to evade parachute-jump training with the school cadet corps must be ranked as funny as anything Pook has yet written. Playboy Pook contains several memorable scenes, not the least of which is an unforgettable educational cruise to Greece, where young Puddle tries to purloin part of the Parthenon, Honners discovers a unique way of entering nightclubs without paying and Pook becomes involved with a passionate lady of the town in an Athens casino which he mistakes for a tube station.