RECENT & READABLE

Disturber of the Peace, by William Manchester. A brisk if not fully penetrating biography of H. L. Mencken; best when it lets Mencken himself do the talking (TIME, Jan. 8).

Concluding, by Henry Green. Goings-on at a girls' school in England; examined with grace and wit by one of England's most talented novelists (TIME, Jan. 1).

Family Reunion, by Ogden Nash. A choice helping from Nash's whole output of shrewd, zany verse on the domestic trials and joys of white-collar citizens (TIME, Jan. 1).

The Thirteen Clocks, by James Thurber. A thoroughly satisfying fairy tale in which the prince and the princess outmaneuver the wicked Duke to an accompaniment of gleeps, glups, guggles and, possibly, inner meanings (TIME, Dec. 25).

The Telegraph, by Stendhal. Book Two of Stendhal's "third masterpiece," Laden Leuwen; a savage and witty satire on the bourgeois monarchy of Louis Philippe (TIME, Dec. 25).

The Blue and the Gray, edited by Henry Steele Commager. Two memorable volumes of letters, memoirs and journalism by Americans who fought and lived the Civil War; a participants' account by men & women who knew what they were fighting for (TIME, Dec. 11).

The Hinge of Fate, by Winston S. Churchill. Volume IV of Churchill's World War II memoirs; Singapore to Tunisia in another incomparable Churchillian account (TIME, Dec. 4).

Classics and Commercials, by Edmund Wilson. Selected pieces by the contemporary dean of U.S. highbrow literary critics (TIME, Nov. 20).

The Disenchanted, by Budd Schulberg. The last chapters in the decline & fall of a novelist who had been the Jazz Age's darling; a novel largely modeled on the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald (TIME, Nov. 13).

Shooting an Elephant, by George Orwell. Reminiscences and reflections on literature and life by the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four (TIME, Nov. 13).

Boswell's London Journal, by James Boswell. Volume I (44 more to come) of the papers of Scotsman Boswell, who may yet be remembered as much for his candid journal as for his famed biography of Dr. Johnson (TIME, Nov. 13).

The Twenty-Fifth Hour, by Virgil Gheorghiu. A concentration-camp novel which has become Europe's bestseller (TIME, Nov. 6).

LIFE'S Picture History of World War II. A vivid assembly of World War II's actions, scenes and faces (TIME, Oct. 23).

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