Books, Arts & Manners: Random Notes

September Leftovers: In Requiem: The Decline and Demise of Mayor Daley and His Era (Contemporary Books, $8.95), Len O’Connor does a fine job of examining Richard Daley’s last days: from the time he missed the boat on Carter and couldn’t deliver Illinois to the Democrats, it was all downhill. . . . Annie Dillard’s Holy the Firm (Harper & Row, $7.50) brings us more prose poesy from a modern-day Thoreau, whose previous book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, touched the core of rural America. . . . In Karen Anne: The Quinlans Tell Their Story (Doubleday, $10), Joseph and Julia Quinlan explain their on-going fight for their daughter’s right to “die with dignity.”

October Titles: David Irving has written a thoroughly researched biography of Rommel, the German commander who plotted against Hitler but almost won the war for him—at least in North Africa— in The Trail of the Fox (Dutton, $15). . . . Jorge Luis Borges, who has been called the greatest living writer, has brought out a new collection of short stories called The Book of Sand (Dutton, $7.95), written, he notes, “to ease the passing of time.” . . . In Part of My Life: The Memoirs of a Philosopher (Harcourt Brace, $14.95), A. J. Ayer recalls his first 35 years, during which he popularized the doctrines of logical positivism and hobnobbed with such figures as Virginia Woolf and George Orwell. . . . Robert Payne has turned out still another biography of still another Soviet revolutionary. This time it’s The Life and Death of Trotsky (McGraw-Hill, $12.50), which concentrates on Trotsky’s hubris, and his rapid decline following Lenin’s death. . . . Susan Atkins, one of Manson’s still-imprisoned girls, describes her demonic descent and her resurrection in Child of Satan, Child of God (Logos International, $7.95). Her conversion may make an even better story than Chuck Colson’s. . . . Washington reporter Robert Shogan, who has been keeping tabs on Carter, reports his conclusions in Promises to Keep: Carter’s First Hundred Days (Crowell, $8.95). . . . Gary Paulson appraises the achievements of the realists who have wrested a living from the soil in Farm: A History and Celebration of the American Farmer (Prentice-Hall, $8.95).

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September Leftovers: In Requiem: The Decline and Demise of Mayor Daley and His Era (Contemporary Books, $8.95), Len O’Connor does a fine job of examining Richard Daley’s last days: from the time he missed the boat on Carter and couldn’t deliver Illinois to the Democrats, it was all downhill. . . . Annie Dillard’s Holy the Firm (Harper & Row, $7.50) brings us more prose poesy from a modern-day Thoreau, whose previous book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, touched the core of rural America. . . . In Karen Anne: The Quinlans Tell Their Story (Doubleday, $10), Joseph and Julia Quinlan explain their on-going fight for their daughter’s right to “die with dignity.”

October Titles: David Irving has written a thoroughly researched biography of Rommel, the German commander who plotted against Hitler but almost won the war for him—at least in North Africa— in The Trail of the Fox (Dutton, $15). . . . Jorge Luis Borges, who has been called the greatest living writer, has brought out a new collection of short stories called The Book of Sand (Dutton, $7.95), written, he notes, “to ease the passing of time.” . . . In Part of My Life: The Memoirs of a Philosopher (Harcourt Brace, $14.95), A. J. Ayer recalls his first 35 years, during which he popularized the doctrines of logical positivism and hobnobbed with such figures as Virginia Woolf and George Orwell. . . . Robert Payne has turned out still another biography of still another Soviet revolutionary. This time it’s The Life and Death of Trotsky (McGraw-Hill, $12.50), which concentrates on Trotsky’s hubris, and his rapid decline following Lenin’s death. . . . Susan Atkins, one of Manson’s still-imprisoned girls, describes her demonic descent and her resurrection in Child of Satan, Child of God (Logos International, $7.95). Her conversion may make an even better story than Chuck Colson’s. . . . Washington reporter Robert Shogan, who has been keeping tabs on Carter, reports his conclusions in Promises to Keep: Carter’s First Hundred Days (Crowell, $8.95). . . . Gary Paulson appraises the achievements of the realists who have wrested a living from the soil in Farm: A History and Celebration of the American Farmer (Prentice-Hall, $8.95).