How to Defend Yourself, Your Family, and Your Home, by George Hunter (McKay, $6.95). The overworked phrase “required reading” has almost become a reviewer’s cliche, but if ever a book deserved such a recommendation, this is it. It is not a book of ideology (although the Conservative Book Club has wisely made it a selection); it is a textbook of survival. How to Defend Yourself is a disturbing, often alarming work. Written in a direct, no-nonsense style, it offers no glib panaceas or instant-safety formulae; rather it demonstrates how unsafe most locks and defensive techniques are—and, more importantly, what can be done to correct them. An equally valuable (and astonishing) chapter deals with self-defense and the law—and how easily the victim of an aggression may find himself in court and/or prison for defending himself not wisely (in the eyes of the law), but too well. Self-protection techniques, such as weapons, household security and unarmed combat are also investigated. It is not difficult to resist quoting from How to Defend Yourself; to do so would merely take segments out of context, when it is vitally important to yourself and your family to read and apply this book as a whole. J. D. KIRWAN
Ill-at-Ease in Compton, by Richard Ellman (Pantheon, $5.95). This is an on-the-scene journalistic description of the town of Compton, which is adjacent to Watts. The Negroes are moving in, and taking over, and, surprise, there are tensions. The book is more or less readable, but tells us nothing we didn’t know before, and seems to have been published on the theory that anything at all about the Negroes is of compelling interest. Who knows? Maybe it is. The book actually got a full page, completely unintelligible review in the New York Times Book Review by an individual who is apparently black. Well, if you are a writer, and you find yourself graveled for subject matter, you would be very well advised to slap together some sort of book on the Negroes. J. HART
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