(4 of 4)
THE BEST TIMES, by John Dos Passes. An informal canter through a "narrative panorama" of the U.S. of the recent past. Historian-Journalist Dos Passes, having suffered ideological tumbles on both the left and right, now seems to have come to rest on a distrust of all systems that claim to improve mankind at the cost of freedom.
A HOUSE IN ORDER, by Nigel Dennis. A witty homage to the world's last gardener, a prisoner of war in some ultimate cataclysm who sits out the conflict in a greenhouse. When asked what he did during the war, he can answer with the Abbé Sieyès: "I survived."
VESSEL OF WRATH, by Robert Lewis Taylor. A new and nimble biography of Carry Nation, whose hatchet made a shambles of saloons from Medicine Lodge to Coney Island.
THE HEIRS OF CAIN, by Abraham Rothberg. Violence has become the idiom of the times, and Rothberg proves that he understands all the nuances, using an espionage mission as a framework for a brilliant retelling of the history of the Diaspora in this century.
LA CHAMADE, by Françoise Sagan. Another dissection of the anatomy of a love affair, written crisply and economically by the heiress to Colette's throne.
TREMOR OF INTENT, by Anthony Burgess. The versatile Burgess comes up with one of the best espionage novels since The Spy Who Came In from the Cold.
Best Sellers
FICTION
1. The Secret of Santa Vittoria, Crichton (1 last week)
2. Valley of the Dolls, Susann (2)
3. Capable of Honor, Drury (3)
4. The Mask of Apollo, Renault (4)
5. The Birds Fall Down, West (5)
6. Tai-Pan, Clavell (6)
7. The Fixer, Malamud (8)
8. All in the Family, O'Connor (7)
9. A Dream of Kings, Petrakis (10)
10. The Adventurers, Robbins (9)
NONFICTION
1. Rush to Judgment, Lane (1)
2. Everything But Money, Levenson (3)
3. The Boston Strangler, Frank (2)
4. With Kennedy, Salinger (4)
5. The Search for Amelia Earhart, Goerner (10)
6. How to Avoid Probate, Dacey (5)
7. Games People Play, Berne (6)
8. The Jury Returns, Nizer (8)
9. Random House Dictionary of the English Language (7)
10. Human Sexual Response, Masters and Johnson (9)
*All times E.S.T.