Books: Two Short Ones

ALWAYS YOUNG AND FAIR (177 pp.)—Conrad Rlchfer—Knopf ($2).

THE TRIAL OF SOREN QVIST (256 pp.)—Janet Lewis—Doubleday ($2.50).

A simple story well told is the wheaten loaf of literature. There are traces of machine-kneading in both these short novels, but the ingredients are honest and the crust is tasty. Anybody who feels a trifle tired of classics, biographies, soothsayers and trash might enjoy either, with a cup of milk.

Most of Conrad Richter's story might have been written by Booth Tarkington. In a transparent and innocent style he tells of Lucy Markle, a beautiful smalltown girl at the turn of the century remembered "in an...