(5 of 5)
THE RUINED MAP, by Kobo Abe. In this psychological whodunit by one of Japan's best novelists (The Woman in the Dunes, The Face of Another), a detective turns a search for a missing husband into a metaphysical quest for his own identity.
ADA, by Vladimir Nabokov. A long, lyric fairy tale about time, memory, and the 83-year-long love affair of a half-sister and a half-brother by the finest living writer of English fiction.
THE LONDON NOVELS OF COLIN MaelNNES (CITY OF SPADES, ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS, MR. LOVE AND JUSTICE). Icy observations and poetic perceptions of the back alleys and subcultures in that pungent city on the Thames.
PICTURES OF FIDELMAN, by Bernard Malamud. Yet another schlemiel, but this one is canonized by Malamud's compassionate talent.
THE GUNFIGHTER, by Joseph G. Rosa. A balanced, wide-screen view of the often unbalanced men who infested the Wild West.
BULLET PARK, by John Cheever. In his usual setting of uncomfortably comfortable suburbia, Cheever stages the struggle of two men—one mild and monogamous, the other tormented and libertine—over the fate of a boy.
Best Sellers
FICTION
1. The Love Machine, Susann (1 last week)
2. Portnoy's Complaint, Roth (2)
3. Ada, Nabokov (4)
4. The Godfather, Puzo (3)
5. Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut (5)
6. The Salzburg Connection, Maclnnes (6)
7. Except for Me and Thee, West (8)
8. The Pretenders, Davis
9. Bullet Park, Cheever (7) 10. Airport, Hailey (9)
NONFICTION
1. The Peter Principle, Peter and Hull (3)
2. Ernest Hemingway, Baker (1)
3. Between Parent and Teenager, Ginott (4)
4. Jennie, Martin (2) 5. The Kingdom and the Power, Talese 6. The 900 Days, Salisbury (6)
7. The Money Game, 'Adam Smith' (7)
8. A Long Row of Candles, Sulzberger 9. The Arms of Krupp, Manchester (10) 10. Miss Craig's 21-Day Shape-Up Program for Men and Women, Craig (5)
* All times E.D.T.