THE CREAM

P: There is no room in TIME for the second-rate, the inconsequential. The following new books are advertised here by their publishers only at the express invitation of TIME's Book Editor. Not all the good books are here advertised; but all the books here advertised are good.

P: They are books selected from extensive lists as being of outstanding merit and interest for TIME-readers. Laudatory "blurbs" are purposely omitted, being unnecessary. Each book's mere presence in the list testifies to its excellence; each book admitted has been, or will be, descriptively reported in TIME text.

P: Reading these books you will partake of the cream of this season's literature.

Fiction

ELMER GANTRY--Sinclair Lewis-- --Harcourt, Brace ($2.50). Ministers flayed.

DOOMSDAY--Warwick Deeping-- Knopf ($2.50). A Pandora of rural England.

THE KING'S HENCHMAN--Edna St. Vincent Millay--Harper ($2). Libretto for "the greatest U. S. opera."

LEAD ME INTO TEMPTATION-- Frank Heller--Croivell ($2). A lighter vein of Scandinavia.

BLACK BUTTERFLIES -- Elizabeth Jordan--Century ($2). Courageous honesty versus intemperate egoism, in a nowadays wife.

DECADENCE--Maxim Gorky--Mc-Bride ($2.50). His first novel since the 'War; peasant plutocrats.

EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE--Felix Riesenberg -- Harcourt, Brace ($2.50). Epical treatment of Manhattan, isle of psychlones.

THE SHOOTING PARTY--Anton Chekhov--David McKay ($1.25). First English translation of his only novel.

THE UNKNOWN PORT--Christine W. Parmenter--Croivell ($2). Where a teashop's ship sailed.

THE PLUTOCRAT--Booth Tarking-ton--Doubleday, Page ($2). An Illinois Caesar visits Carthage.

CHILDREN OF THE MORNING-- W. L. George--Putnam ($2). What became of 59 children on a desert island.

Verse

PERSONAE (Collected Poems) -- Ezra Pound -- Boni & Liveright ($3.50). An esthetic outline of history.

Non-Fiction

THE GOLDEN DAY--Lewis Mum- ford--Boni & Liveright ($2.50). Cultural history of the U. S. bot- tled in crystal.

HAWKERS AND WALKERS IN EARLY AMERICA -- Richardson Wright -- Lippincott ($4.50). A history of U. S. vagabond commerce, illustrated.

THE OUTLINE OF SANITY--Gil-bert K. Chesterton--Dodd, Mead ($2.50). Glorifying the economic individual.

THE HISTORY OF ATLANTIS-- Lewis Spence -- David McKay ($3.50). Fact and analogy about the mislaid continent.

THE FURTHER VENTURE BOOK-- Elinor Mordaunt--Century ($4). Lone woman in the South Seas.

THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY--Will Durant--Simon & Schuster ($5). The sages humanized, from Plato to John Dewey.

THE MYTH OF THE INDIVIDUAL-- Charles W. Wood--John Day ($2.50). Uncontroversial critique of the U. S. ego.

Biography

WILLIAM HOHENZOLLERN : The Last of the Kaisers--Emil Ludwig --Putnam ($5). "The colossal egoist, the spoof Napoleon."

THE ROAD To THE TEMPLE--Su-san Glaspell--Stokes ($3.50). Biography of the late George Cram Cook by Mrs. Cook.

NAPOLEON--Emil Ludwig--Boni & Liveright ($3). Without nimbus or hyperbole. P: Should booksellers fail, the facilities of TIME's book department are at its readers' disposal to enlarge upon or order the above, or any other, books. Inclose cash or a check to the Book Editor, TIME the Newsmagazine, Penton Building, Cleveland, Ohio, making plain to whom you wish your purchases sent.

*Last year he explored Kansas, Missouri and adjacent states disguised as a book salesman ; met and studied preachers for his pages. In Kansas City he gave a pulpit demonstration, asked God to strike him dead if He existed. Preachers explained later that Author Lewis was already dead, spiritually. But like Main Street, Babbitt and Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry will be long remembered as a piece of national literature.