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There was scarcely a war book which did not have, like bits of precious metal buried in piles of scrap iron, its passages of eloquence and emotion. There was not one which, spanning the fronts in all their global immensity, and the millions of individual tragedies, encompassed the war in a single definitive work. Piecing the accounts together, editing out irrelevancies, readers could compose their own history of their own time from the almost limitless supply of fair-to-good material for speculation and inquiry.
Most Shocking. Possibly the year's most shocking war book was not written by a soldier, described no battles. It was Thérèse Bonney's photographic record of what World War II has done to Europe's children. Privately printed (after rejection by ten publishers), Europe's Children is now completely sold out. Duell, Sloan & Pearce is publishing a new edition.
Also valuable war books, though not battle books, were: Tokyo Record (Otto Tolischus, $3); In Peace Japan Breeds War (Gustav Eckstein, $2.50); Japan's Military Masters (Hillis Lory, $2.50); Paris—Underground (Etta Shiber, $2.50) The Serbs Choose War (Ruth Mitchell, $2.75); They Shall Not Have Me (Jean Hélion, $3).
Startling Dearth. In startling contrast to the spate of military books was the dearth of competent political books that could provide U.S. readers of 1943 with some clue to the background of conflict from which they might appraise the turbulent changes of the year. The geopoliticians were busy. Andreas Dorpalen's The World of General Haushofer ($3.50) and Derwent Whittlesey's German Strategy of World Conquest ($2.50) examined the basic ideas which German Geopolitician Haushofer has contributed to Nazi grand strategy. Still a strong seller was Democratic Ideals and Reality ($2.50), by aging British Geopolitician Sir Halford Mackinder. There was also G. A. Borgese's Common Cause ($3.50) and a timely reissue of Walter Lippmann's The Good Society ($2).
New Field of Literature. A new kind of book made its appearance in numbers 1943. Books on the postwar world, becoming almost as numerous as books on the war, were so exhaustive and detailed that they constitute a new field of literature in themselves. Among the most readable postwar books: Make This the Last War (Michael Straight, $3); Let the People Know (Norman Angell, $2.50); U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic (Walter Lippmann, $1.50); Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time (Harold J. Laski, $3.50); Between Tears and Laughter (Lin Yutang, $2.50).
Books which dealt with the future in terms of past history were: Historian Charles Beard's distinguished examination of U.S. democracy, The Republic ($3), Bernard DeVoto's The Year of Decision: 1846 ($3.50), Hamilton Basso's Mainstream ($2.50).
Religious Novels. Nineteen forty-three was also a year in which religious novels crept into the top brackets of fast-selling fiction. Lloyd Douglas' The Robe, published the year before, was the No. 1 U.S. fiction best-seller for eleven months, was then nosed out by John P. Marquand's So Little Time (sales of The Robe to date: 680,000 copies). Sholem Asch's The Apostle is now No. 4 bestseller.