Fiction: Recent Books: May 18, 1936

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FLY AWAY BLACKBIRD—Jerrard Tickell —Morrow ($2.50). Open-air love story about a clean-cut, strangely noble Irishman and a Viennese beauty who married a rich rake to pay her daddy's bills.

JOURNAL OF A YOUNG MAN—Martin Delaney—Vanguard ($2.50). Case study of poverty-ridden Greenwich Villagers in the pre-New Deal era, set down by a sensitive young Irishman who strives to maintain his integrity while Catholicism, Communism and a self-centred blonde struggle for his soul.

SALKA VALKA — Halldor Laxness —Houghton Mifflin ($2.50). Caustic realism and old-fashioned sentiment combined in a lengthy sociological history of corruption, lust and political conflict in an Icelandic fishing village. Author Laxness has a weakness for rhetoric, a hand skilled at character dissection.

MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES—H. G. Wells—Macmillan ($1.35). Scenario version of an earlier short story, intended as companion piece to the cinema Things to Come (TIME, April 6).

SOUTH OF THE SUNSET—Claire W'arner Churchill—Rufus Rockwell Wilson ($3). Fictionized account of the adventures of Canoe Launcher, ambitious Shoshone Indian girl who served as guide to Lewis & Clark on their exploratory trip to the Great Northwest.

Non-Fiction

D. H. LAWRENCE: A PERSONAL RECORD —E. T.—Knight Publications ($2.50). Another—but one of the best—of the books about the late great Lawrence; this one by one of his earliest friends, a girl who knew and loved him when they were growing up together. "E. T." is the "Miriam" of Sons and Lovers.

THE UNDERWORLD OF THE EAST—James S. Lee—Greenberg ($3.50). By an Englishman who confesses having been a drug addict for 30 years. A somewhat rascally but euphemistic account of "the underworlds, drug haunts and jungles of India, China, and the Malay Archipelago." Net effect: like that of a circus sideshow.

MY TEN YEARS IN A QUANDARY—Robert Benchley—Harper ($2.50). These 105 brief Benchleys stand as incontrovertible proof of the wide range of a hard-pressed humorist's fancy.

HARPOONER — Robert Ferguson — University of Pennsylvania Press ($2.50). Journal of an unassuming Scottish-U. S. seaman, who calmly recorded his day-today experiences on a four-year whaling expedition in the 1880's. An adept at understatement, Diarist Ferguson conveys the impression that despite the extreme hazards of his profession, the harpooner's lot was not an unhappy one.

Murders

THE FEATHER CLOAK MURDERS—Darwin and Hildegarde Teilhet—Crime Club ($2). Brave Baron von Kaz (The Ticking Terror Murders) reappears on U. S. territory to unscramble a murderous mess in the Hawaiian Islands. Out of the Baron's prowlings, tantrums, and passion for the beauteous Caryl, Authors Teilhet concoct a tale whose underpinnings are stouter than the average thriller's.

FLOWERS FOR THE JUDGE—Margery Allingham — Double day, Doran ($2). Author Allingham's characters are conventional murder-story puppets but by skillful pace, dialog, detail, she makes a commonplace theme into a specious and entertaining yarn.