Books: Magna Cum Laude

I WENT TO PIT COLLEGE—Lauren Gilfillan—Viking ($2.50). Diminutive Lauren Gilfillan graduated from Smith College in 1931 and, like many of her generation, could find no job. So she decided to go to a Pennsylvania mining town, write a book about it. The result of her adventures is an absorbingly interesting record, written with such artful candor that it reads like a first-rate novel. I Went to Pit College will be an eye opener to anyone who supposes that a serious book about striking miners must be either a dreary factual study or hysterical...