Books: Stepmother Country

WITH MALICE TOWARD SOME—Margaret Halsey—Simon & Schuster ($2.50).

U. S. readers are used to Englishmen's relentless output of travel books about the U. S. But for an American to write a travel book about England is still a novelty. Wife of a Ph.D. (brother of Publisher Richard Simon) who spent a year in England on an exchange professorship, 28-year-old Margaret Halsey has added enough wisecracks to make her novelty also a likely bestseller. Divested of wisecracks, Author Halsey's English impressions are surprisingly charitable — kinder than most English impressions of the U. S., kinder...