"Best"

THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1925, Edited by Edward J. O'Brien, Small, Maynard ($2.50). By "best," Mr. O'Brien means those stories through which "the fresh, living current" of U. S. life flows and upon which has been conferred psychological and imaginative reality. The editor is not interested in organized criticism. Watching from European haunts, he records "the result of America's conscious attempt at self-education" in a medium peculiarly American. It is his eleventh consecutive record of the kind, bringing the total of stories selected to 220.

Readers of history, biography and novels who wait for Mr. O'Brien's annual pronouncement to see what has been what in the short-story field, will applaud three rising young men this year, Barry Benefield, Nathan Asch, Glenway Wescott. The hardy perennials are welcome: Sherwood Anderson, Konrad Bercovici, Katharine Fullerton Gerould, Ring Lardner, Wilbur Daniel Steele and Elinor Wylie. Others: Sandra Alexander, Bella Cohen, Charles Caldwell Dobie, Rudolph Fisher, Walter Gilkyson, Manuel Komroff, Robert Robinson, Evelyn Scott, May Stanley, Milton Waldman, Barrett Willoughby.