Books Briefly
Books Briefly SUCH A STRANGE LADY, by Janet Hitch-man (Harper & Row. 177 pp., $8.95). Dorothy L. Sayers, the erudite creator of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, "was a mass of contradictions,"...
...she was untidy, overate, and drank too much wine...
...8.95 hardcover...
...Drawings by Chuck Ripper...
...191 pp...
...10.95 hardcover...
...Werner believes Weber's flower pictures were among his finest works...
...An Algonquin wit, friend of Robert Benchley, George S. Kaufman, and Dorothy Parker, Broun was a colorful figure in the Manhattan literary and journalistic scene...
...HEYWOOD BROUN, by Richard O'Connor (Putnam...
...In 1930 he ran for Congress on the Socialist ticket in a New York district, with the strong support of his old newspaper friend and preceptor, McAlister Coleman...
...she turned her own child over to an eccentric cousin...
...Weber (he worshipped Cezanne and studied with Matisse) moved from the Cubist-Futurist style of his youth to his own dramatic Expressionist style, yet he, Werner notes in this lavish book, "never wanted to sever all ties with classical tradition...
...200 pp...
...His favorite subjects were nudes, landscapes, and still lifes, but to many viewers of Weber's prolific output, his Jewish scenes and color distortions like Rush Hour, New York may be more vividly distinctive...
...The literary criticism—essays on general subjects as well as appraisals of particular writers—takes up more than two-thirds of the volume...
...Hitchman judges Five Red Herrings an "exceedingly dull" book, Gaudy Night her "worst," and The Nine Tailors her "best...
...14.95...
...SELECTED PROSE OF T.S...
...The editor of Audubon magazine has collected twenty-five articles relating to birds which have been published over the years...
...37.50...
...These well-written essays range from bird lore and myths to first-hand recollections...
...But any hobby is a means of liberation from the stale repetition of civil life...
...When Eliot in later years reread some of his early essays, he said he found in them "the braggadocio of the mild-mannered man safely entrenched behind his typewriter...
...From her fifties until her death at sixty-four, she became increasingly interested in religious books and plays, church work, and a translation of Dante...
...His newspaper column, "It Seems to Me," was often a bright and cheerful candle in the darkness of the Depression years...
...The book, which contains nineteen essays and addresses printed in full and selected passages from a dozen others, provides a comprehensive introduction to one of the most original, critical minds of our time...
...The well-educated daughter of a clergyman wrote the mysteries "with cold calculation" while she was an advertising copywriter, but eventually she "did have qualms about making money out of crime...
...Lippincott...
...ELIOT, edited with an introduction by Frank Kermode (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and Farrar, Straus and Giroux...
...Probably the most enduring monument to his career was the American Newspaper Guild, which he organized and presided over in its early turbulent years...
...While its title is pretentious, this is an unpretentious handbook for consumers, teachers, and students on learning how to recognize deception in media promotion, in supermarket and television advertising, how to understand the effects of nonverbal communication, and how to develop an awakened eye in perceiving the visual world...
...Eliot's fame as a poet has somewhat overshadowed his distinguished reputation as a literary and social critic...
...Among the best contributions are "The Bird Habit," by Brooks Atkinson, "The Power of the Owl," by Angus Cameron, and—no surprise to readers of this magazine—"A Free Margin for Birds," by Hal Borland...
...156 illustrations, with 52 in full color...
...She had a degree of contempt for her readers, she was accused of racial prejudice, and apparently no one knew her intimately...
...the rest is social and religious commentary...
...A fat, rumpled, and amiable man, Broun was forgetful, neurotic, and drank too much, but his inherent goodness made him, as George Oppenheimer said, "a knight in ill-fitting armor, but a knight nonetheless...
...320 pp...
...Both Werner's text and the many illustrations are admirable...
...This Russian-born American painter, print maker, and sculptor did not achieve outstanding popular or critical acclaim before his death in 1961 at the age of eighty...
...A strange lady indeed...
...Schrank, a former teacher and contributing editor of Media & Methods, includes listings of useful resource guides: publications, books, films, and organizations...
...He had a lifelong predilection for lost causes and compulsively threw himself into political and social controversies...
...I do not look at birds uncritically," Atkinson observes...
...It was this sort of good-natured, salty sanity that often made Eliot's writing attractive even to readers who shared few of his convictions...
...Dorothy L. Sayers, the erudite creator of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, "was a mass of contradictions," according to British biographer Janet Hitchman, and her evidence is impressive...
...She was intellectually well organized but physically not...
...THE PLEASURE OF BIRDS, edited by Les Line...
...For all Sayers's erudition she made "odd slips," and in The Nine Tailors "the real glaring error is that she allows the rector to relieve the ringers at various times...
...4.95 paperback...
...Stunning drawings and color photographs...
...She loved cats but disliked children...
...249 pp...
...DECEPTION DETECTION: AN EDUCATOR'S GUIDE TO THE ART OF INSIGHT, by Jeffrey Schrank (Beacon Press...
...Broun (18881939) was a liberal journalist who attacked, with courage and wit, the social ills and injustices of his day...
...MAX WEBER, by Alfred Werner (Harry N. Abrams...
...154 pp...
...She needed the money to support an illegitimate child born in her thirties and an irresponsible husband...
...This judicious selection from his prose writings by Frank Kermode of Cambridge University demonstrates the range and penetration, the diversity and exten-siveness of Eliot's criticism...
...3.45 paperback...
Vol. 40 • January 1976 • No. 1
