Books: Weeds of Speech

MY DEAR BELLA—Arthur Kober—Random House ($2).

These episodes of life in The Bronx have for principal characters Bella Gross, a private secretary who will not let herself be called a stenographer; her father and mother; and the young man she thinks occasionally of marrying, Max Fine, a C.P.A. who will not let himself be called a bookkeeper. All the stories (originally printed in The New Yorker and now illustrated by The New Yorker's Sydney Hoff) achieve the distinction of being not only funny but sympathetic.

The Bronx is a luxuriant weed patch on the...

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