PRESIDENTIAL MISSION (641 pp.) Upton SinclairViking ($3.50).
Critics may scoff and historians may protest, but Lanny Budd, Upton Sinclair's supercharged Rover Boy, still roves the globe. Presidential Mission is the eighth and latest volume of the breathless Lanny-discovers- the-20th-century saga, which already runs to 2½ million words and seems good for at least as many million more.
Now nearing 70, Author Sinclair can still reel off his special Lanny-brand of history and hokum at comic-strip clip. "All I have to do is turn the spigot," he once explained, "and the water flows." And, though critics and historians may...