Books: Best Books

Christmas is house-cleaning time for booksellers. The publishers remit their flood of new titles while shelves are cleared, ledgers audited for the new year. Readers can now reconsider the past year's output, check what they have read, what they have missed, what they might give as presents. Following is a list designed to be helpful:

FICTION

ALL MEN ARE BROTHERS—Translated from the Chinese by Pearl S. Buck—Day (2 vol.; $6.50).

ANN VICKERS—Sinclair Lewis—Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).

ANTHONY ADVERSE—Hervey Allen— Farrar & Rinehart ($3).

THE BIRD OF DAWNING—John Masefield—Macmillan ($2.50).

THE BRIDGE OF DREAMS—Lady Murasaki—Honghton Mifflin ($3.50).

CARR—Phyllis Bentley—Macmillan ($2).

THE COLOURED DOME—Francis Stuart —Macmillan ($2).

DARK HAZARD—W. R. Burnett—Harper ($2.50).

DEATH IN THE WOODS AND OTHER STORIES—Sherwood Anderson—Liveright ($2).

FLUSH—Virginia Woolf—Harcourt, Brace ($2).

FULL CIRCLE—John Collier—Appleton ($2).

GOD'S LITTLE ACRE—Erskine Caldwell—Viking ($2.50).

GREAT CIRCLE—Conrad Aiken—Scribner ($2).

IN TRAGIC LIFE—Vardis Fisher—Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).

KETTLE—Gustav Eckstein— Harper ($2.50).

KINGDOM COMING—Roark Bradford— Harper ($2.50).

LAMB IN HIS BOSOM—Caroline Miller—Harper ($2).

THE LAST ADAM—James Gould Cozzens—Harcourt, Brace ($2.50).

MEN OF GOOD WILL: VOLUME ONE— Jules Romains—Knopf ($2.50).

NO MORE TRUMPETS—George Milburn—Harcourt, Brace ($2.50).

ONE MORE SPRING—Robert Nathan— Knopf ($2).

PETER ABELARD—Helen Waddell—Holt ($2.50).

PITY IS NOT ENOUGH—Josephine Herbst—Harcourt, Brace ($2.50).

SOLAL—Albert Cohen—Dutton ($2.40).

SOUTH MOON UNDER—Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings—Scribner ($2).

TIME, FORWARD!—Valentine Kataev—Farrar & Rinehart ($2.50).

TO THE NORTH—Elizabeth Bowen—Knopf ($2.50).

TROPICAL WINTER— Joseph Hergesheimer—Knopf ($2.50).

WINNER TAKE NOTHING—Ernest Hemingway—Scribner ($2).

THE WOODS COLT—Thames Williamson —Harcourt, Brace ($2).

YESTERDAY'S BURDENS—Robert M. Coates—Macaulay ($2).

NON-FICTION

THE ADVENTURES OF THE BLACK GIRL IN HER SEARCH FOR GOD—Bernard Shaw —Dodd, Mead ($1.50).

ANDREW JACKSON, THE BORDER CAPTAIN — Marquis James — Bobbs-Merrill ($3.75).

THE ARCHES OF THE YEARS—Halliday Sutherland—Morrow ($2.75).

ARCTIC VILLAGE—Robert Marshall— Smith & Haas ($3).

THE AMERICAN PROCESSION—Agnes Rogers & Frederick Lewis Allen—Harper ($2.75).

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS — Gertrude Stein — Harcourt, Brace ($3.50).

THE BOOK OF TALBOT—Violet Clifton —Harcourt, Brace ($3.50).

CECIL RHODES—Sarah Gertrude Millin —Harper ($3.75).

CHARACTERS & COMMENTARIES—Lytton Strachey—Harcourt, Brace ($3).

THE FIRST WORLD WAR — Edited by Laurence Stallings—Simon & Schuster ($3.50).