(4 of 5)
BOOKS Best Reading EDWARD LEAR, THE LIFE OF A WANDERER, by Vivien Noakes. In this excellent biography, the Victorian painter, poet, fantasist, and author of A Book of Nonsense is seen as a kindly, gifted man who courageously tried to stay cheerful despite an astonishing array of diseases and afflictions.
THE SECRET WAR FOR EUROPE, by Louis Hagen. As he explores the development of espionage agencies and replays many a cold war spy case, the author presents a detailed view of politics and espionage in Germany since 1945.
REFLECTIONS UPON A SINKING SHIP, by Gore Vidal. A collection of perceptively sardonic essays about the Kennedys, Tarzan, Susan Sontag, pornography, the 29th Republican Convention, and other aspects of what Vidal sees as the declining West.
THE MILITARY PHILOSOPHERS, by Anthony Powell. The ninth volume in his serial novel, A Dance to the Music of Time, expertly convoys Powell's innumerable characters through the intrigue, futility, boredom and courage of World War II.
THE MARX BROTHERS AT THE MOVIES, by Paul D. Zimmerman and Burt Goldblatt. Next to a reel of their films, this excellent book offers the best possible way to meet (or revisit) the Marx Brothers in the happy time when they had all their energy and all their laughs.
THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, by Thomas Wiseman. Wiseman's novel about the friendship between a half-Jew and a Nazi, before and during World War II in Vienna, is a brilliant psychological study of how two very different men can become so fatally entwined that each determines the course of the other's life.
GRANT TAKES COMMAND, by Bruce Catton. Completing the trilogy begun by the late historian Lloyd Lewis, Catton employs lucidity and laconic humor as he follows the taciturn general to his final victory at Appomattox.
THE GODFATHER, by Mario Puzo. For the Mafia, as for other upwardly mobile Americans, the name of the game is respectability and status—after the money and power have been secured. An excellent novel.
TORREGRECA, by Ann Cornelisen. Full of an orphan's love for her adopted town, the author has turned a documentary of human adversity in southern Italy into the unflinching autobiography of a divided heart.
PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT, by Philip Roth. This frenzied monologue by a sex-obsessed Jewish bachelor on a psychiatrist's couch becomes a comic novel about the absurdly painful wounds created by guilt and puritanism.
Best Sellers FICTION 1. Portnoy's Complaint, Roth (1 last week)
2. The Salzburg Connection, Maclnnes (2)
3. The Godfather, Puzo (4)
4. A Small Town in Germany, le Carre (3)
5. Airport, Hailey (6)
6. Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home, Kemelman (5)
7. Force 10 from Navarone, MacLean (7)
8. A World of Profit, Auchincloss
9. Preserve and Protect, Drury (8) 10. The Vines of Yarrabee, Eden
NONFICTION 1. The 900 Days, Salisbury (1)
2. Miss Craig's 21-Day Shape-Up Program for Men and Women, Craig (7)
3. The Arms of Krupp, Manchester (2)
4. The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, Goldman (6)
5. The Money Game, 'Adam Smith' (3)
6. Jennie, Martin (8)
7. The Valachi Papers, Maas
8. The Trouble with Lawyers, Bloom (5)
9. Instant Replay, Kramer
10. The Joys of Yiddish, Rosten (4)