Books: A Pot in Every Chicken

THE TIME IS NOON (561 pp.)—Hiram Haydn—Crown ($3.50).

PILGRIM'S INN (346 pp.) — Elizabeth Goudge—Coward-McConn ($3).

Wander this week to the coops of Publishers Row, from whose incubators comes the literary provender of a mighty nation. That lively clucking and scrabbling in the feedboxes is the fanfare which announces that two plump bestsellers have just been hatched. Soon, very soon, both fledglings will spread their contracts, and, obeying some profound migratory instinct, fly away to Hollywood. Meanwhile, their present owners will help these chicks to take their first, stumbling steps toward the jackpot.

Crown...