RECENT & READABLE

The Old Bailey and Its Trials, by Bernard O'Donnell. A hair-raising history of London's famous, once infamous, old court of law (TIME, Aug. 7).

Beyond Defeat, by Hans Richter. The last, lost stages of World War II as seen by Germans who fought at Cassino. A rough but engrossing novel by a onetime private in Hitler's Wehrmacht (TIME, July 31).

The Child Who Never Grew, by Pearl Buck. The simple and memorable story of Novelist Pearl Buck's effort to make a life for her mentally retarded child (TIME, July 24).

Two Adolescents, by Alberto Moravia. Two Italian boys in the perils of puberty. Avoiding the perils of bathos, Author Moravia (Woman of Rome) keeps his storytelling clear and dry (TIME, July 24).

Orley Farm, by Anthony Trollope. Country life in Victorian England with a full-blown Trollopean cast of characters and enough novelist's insight to equip a dozen contemporary novelists; reissued as the first of a new Trollope series (TIME, July 10).

Follow Me Down, by Shelby Foote. How a God-fearing Mississippi farmer is seized by temptation and driven to murder; a taut little novel of crime & passion (TIME, July 3).

America Begins, edited by Richard M. Dorson. A selection from the diaries, memoirs, histories and letters of early American settlers provides some bright footnotes to the U.S. story (TIME, July 3).

World Enough and Time, by Robert Penn Warren. Political intrigue, murder, and a good man's struggles of conscience in early 19th Century Kentucky; a rich, uneven historical novel by the author of All the King's Men (TIME, June 26).

There'll Always Be a Drayneflete, by Osbert Lancaster. A witty satire on the British way of life as seen through the architectural history of an imaginary country town (TIME, June 26).

The Green Huntsman, by Henri Beyle (Stendhal). Book One of Stendhal's unfinished "third masterpiece"; a penpoint dissection of life in a French garrison town of the 1830s, published in English for the first time (TIME, June 26).

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