Random Notes

Books: Now we can sing along with Frodo, Bilbo et al—Donald Swann (of Flanders and) has dropped his hat and set to music seven of the songs in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The book will include piano accompaniments, guitar chords, and yet more of Tolkien’s scholarly impedimenta (Houghton, October, $3.95)… . “Tis the season for teams of report- — ers to delve under rocks, examine the seamier characters of our time and have their findings published by New American Library. Garry Wills and Ovid Demaris are expanding their Esquire articles on Jack Ruby into a book, The Man Who Killed the Man Who Killed Kennedy (September, $4.95); Charles Howard Schmid Jr., the weirdo who did in three teenyboppers, is examined in The Pied Piper of Tucson by Don Meyer and Jerry Cohen (October, $4.95), and A. M. Rosenthal and Arthur Gelb, both of the N.Y. Times, recount the strange life and death of Daniel Burros, a Nice Jewish Boy who made it big as a Ku Klux Klansman, in One More Victim (October, $5). S. N. Behrman. is writing an introduction to Strive and Succeed, a double dose of Horatio Alger containing Julius, or, The Street Boy Out West and The Score Boy, or, The Fortunes of Ben Barclay (Holt, July, $4.95). . . . Britain’s Labor Party gets dissected by no less than C. Northcote Parkinson, in the forthcoming Left Luggage— President’s English: “Unclaimed Baggage’ (Houghton, October, $4.95)…. A CIA good-guy turned out to pasture is the hero of Finis Farr’s new novel, Elephant Valley (Arlington House, July, $5). … Elizabeth Salter, Edith Sitwell’s Boswell, has written The Last Years of a Rebel about her friend (Houghton, October, $5). For the hammock: Poetic Justice, edited by Ellery Queen, an anthology of 23 crime stories—all by Genuine Poets (New American Library, September, $7.95); The President’s Mystery Plot, a bit of curiosa written in the Thirties by S. S. Van Dine, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Anthony Abbott and other such (a chapter each), from an eutline provided by FDR (Prentice Hall, July, $4.95); The Best of Amazing, edited by Joseph Ross, an anthology covering all the years of the pioneer sf magazine and including Murray Leinster’s first story, a David H. Kelleryarn, Asimov, etc. (Doubleday, $4.50). e MisceLtLuANeEA: William Manchester’s The Death of a President couldn’t be a dud, but sales have been less than expected. Some booksellers are badly disappointed, many are selling the book at a discount, and the publishers, Harper & Row, have announced no plans for a second printing. The monaural record is on the way out, as fewer and fewer non-stereo players are manufactured. One European manufacturer has eliminated the mono disc, and several U.S. firms are studying the possibility.

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Books: Now we can sing along with Frodo, Bilbo et al—Donald Swann (of Flanders and) has dropped his hat and set to music seven of the songs in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The book will include piano accompaniments, guitar chords, and yet more of Tolkien’s scholarly impedimenta (Houghton, October, $3.95)… . “Tis the season for teams of report- — ers to delve under rocks, examine the seamier characters of our time and have their findings published by New American Library. Garry Wills and Ovid Demaris are expanding their Esquire articles on Jack Ruby into a book, The Man Who Killed the Man Who Killed Kennedy (September, $4.95); Charles Howard Schmid Jr., the weirdo who did in three teenyboppers, is examined in The Pied Piper of Tucson by Don Meyer and Jerry Cohen (October, $4.95), and A. M. Rosenthal and Arthur Gelb, both of the N.Y. Times, recount the strange life and death of Daniel Burros, a Nice Jewish Boy who made it big as a Ku Klux Klansman, in One More Victim (October, $5). S. N. Behrman. is writing an introduction to Strive and Succeed, a double dose of Horatio Alger containing Julius, or, The Street Boy Out West and The Score Boy, or, The Fortunes of Ben Barclay (Holt, July, $4.95). . . . Britain’s Labor Party gets dissected by no less than C. Northcote Parkinson, in the forthcoming Left Luggage— President’s English: “Unclaimed Baggage’ (Houghton, October, $4.95)…. A CIA good-guy turned out to pasture is the hero of Finis Farr’s new novel, Elephant Valley (Arlington House, July, $5). … Elizabeth Salter, Edith Sitwell’s Boswell, has written The Last Years of a Rebel about her friend (Houghton, October, $5). For the hammock: Poetic Justice, edited by Ellery Queen, an anthology of 23 crime stories—all by Genuine Poets (New American Library, September, $7.95); The President’s Mystery Plot, a bit of curiosa written in the Thirties by S. S. Van Dine, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Anthony Abbott and other such (a chapter each), from an eutline provided by FDR (Prentice Hall, July, $4.95); The Best of Amazing, edited by Joseph Ross, an anthology covering all the years of the pioneer sf magazine and including Murray Leinster’s first story, a David H. Kelleryarn, Asimov, etc. (Doubleday, $4.50). e MisceLtLuANeEA: William Manchester’s The Death of a President couldn’t be a dud, but sales have been less than expected. Some booksellers are badly disappointed, many are selling the book at a discount, and the publishers, Harper & Row, have announced no plans for a second printing. The monaural record is on the way out, as fewer and fewer non-stereo players are manufactured. One European manufacturer has eliminated the mono disc, and several U.S. firms are studying the possibility.