RECENT & READABLE

The Bird's Nest, by Shirley Jackson.

Not quite top-drawer but a fair enough account of a girl whose personality is split four ways (TIME, June 21).

A Child of the Century, by Ben Hecht.

A big, disorganized, windy, frequently fascinating look in the mirror by a softie who always made like a toughie (TIME une 21).

Mary Anne, by Daphne du Maurier.

A royal duke, a scheming mistress, a scandal that shakes the House of Commons--in other words, all that Du Maurier fans need for a happy evening (TIME, June 21).

Guignol's Band, by Louis Ferdinand Celine. A preposterous but amusing nightmare about pimps, trollops and deadbeats in World War I London (TIME, June 14).

The Victorian Chaise Longue, by Marghanita Laski. A slight but chilling tale about a girl who strayed from the 20th century into the 19th (TIME, June 14).

An English Year, by Nan Fairbrother.

An Englishwoman's beautifully written reflections on changing nature, growing children and the wonders of life in general (TIME, June 7).

Madame de Pompadour, by Nancy Mitford. A life of Louis XV's dazzling mistress, done up in rich literary brocades by a fine British writer (TIME, June 7).

' Chinese Gordon: The Story of a Hero, by Lawrence & Elizabeth Hanson.

A first-rate biography of the odd but dazzling fish who was Victorian England's shining knight (TIME, May 31).

The Courts of Memory, by Frank Rooney. One of the year's best first novels, although tedious in spots, about the lost generation of the '30s and its conformist nonconformists (TIME, May 17).

Minutes of the Last Meeting, by Gene Fowler. More stories about those three Hollywood musketeers, John Barrymore, W. C. Fields and Author Fowler, disguised as a biography of their colleague and poetic oracle, Sadakichi Hartmann (TIME, April 5).

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