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 may 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:

ACT OF DARKNESS--John Peale Bishop--Scribner ($2.50).

ALL THE YOUNG MEN--Oliver La Farge--Houghton Mifflin ($2.50).

ANOTHER CAESAR--Alfred Neumann-- Knopf ($3).

BUTTERFIELD 8--John O'Hara--Harcourt, Brace ($2.50).

CHANCE HAS A WHIP--Raymond Holden--Scribner ($2.50).

CLAUDIUS THE GOD AND HIS WIFE MESSALINA--Robert Graves--Smith & Haas ($3).

DEEP DARK RIVER--Robert Rylee-- Farrar & Rinehart ($2.50).

EUROPA-- Robert Briffault-- Scribner ($2.75).

EXPRESS TO THE EAST--A. den Doolard--Smith & Haas ($2.50).

FISH ON THE STEEPLE-- Ed Bell-- Farrar & Rinehart ($2.50).

THE FURYS-- James Hanley-- Macmillan ($2.50).

HEAVEN'S MY DESTINATION--Thornton Wilder--Harper ($2.50).

HONEY IN THE HORN--H. L. Davis-- Harper ($2.50).

A HOUSE DIVIDED--Pearl S. Buck-- Day ($2.50).

IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE--Sinclair Lewis --Donbleday, Doran ($2.50).

JOURNEYMAN--Erskine Caldwell--Viking ($4-50).

LUCY GAYHEART-- Willa Cather-- Knopf ($2).

'NATIONAL VELVET''--Enid Bagnold-- Morrow ($2.50).

OF TIME AND THE RIVER--Thomas Wolfe--Scribner ($3).

ONE LIGHT BURNING--R. C. Hutchinson--Farrar & Rinehart ($2.50).

PATHS or GLORY--Humphrey Cobb--Viking ($2.50).

PYLON--William Faulkner-- Smith & Haas ($2.50).

THE ROYAL WAY--Andre Malraux-- Smith & Haas ($2.50).

SEEDS OF TOMORROW-- Mikhail Sholokhov--Knopf ($2.50).

A SIGN FOR CAIN--Grace Lumpkin-- Furman ($2.50).

THE STARS LOOK DOWN--A. J. Cronin--Little, Brown ($2.50).

TIME : THE PRESENT--Tess Slesinger-- Simon & Schuster ($2.50).

THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE-- B. Traven--Knopf ($2.50).

VEIN OF IRON--Ellen Glasgow--Harcourt, Brace ($2.50).

THE VOICE OF BUGLE ANN--MacKinlay Kantor--Coward-McCann ($1.25).

THE WORLD FROM BELOW--Jules Romains--Knopf ($3).

Non-Fiction

AN ALMANAC FOR MODERNS--Donald Culross Peattie--Putnam ($3).

ASYLUM--William Seabrook--Harcourt, Brace ($2).

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN HAYS HAMMOND--Farrar & Rinehart ($5).

BEAUMARCHAIS--Paul Frischauer--Viking ($3.50)

BLACK RECONSTRUCTION--W. E. Burghardt Du Bois--Harcourt, Brace ($4.50).

BLACK TENTS OF ARABIA--Carl R. Raswan--Little, Brown ($4).

BYRON : THE YEARS OF FAME--Peter Quennell--Viking ($3.50).

CATHERINE, THE PORTRAIT OF AN EMPRESS--Gina Kaus--Viking ($3.50).

THE CRISIS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS-- Lewis Corey--Covici, Friede ($2.50).

DON FERNANDO--W. Somerset Maugham--Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).

EUROPEAN EXPERIENCES--Mabel Dodge Luhan--Harcourt, Brace ($3.75).

FACING TWO WAYS--Baroness Shidzue Ishimoto--Farrar & Rinehart ($3.50).

GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA--Ernest Hemingway--Scribner ($2.75).

IF IT DIE--Andre Gide--Random House ($5).

IF MEMORY SERVES--Sacha Guitry-- Doubleday, Doran ($3).

KARL MARX--Franz Mehring--Covici, Friede ($5).

"KING LEHR" AND THE GILDED AGE-- Elizabeth Drexel Lehr--Lippincott ($3).

LAND OF THE FREE--Herbert Agar-- Houghton Mifflin ($3.50).

LIFE WITH FATHER--Clarence Day--Knopf ($2).

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTLAND AND THE ISLES--Stefan Zweig--Viking ($3.50).

THE MIND AND SOCIETY--Vilfredo Pareto--Harcourt, Brace (4 Vols., $20).

THE NATURE OF CAPITALIST CRISIS--John Strachey--Covici, Friede ($3).

NORTH TO THE ORIENT--Anne Morrow Lindbergh--Harcourt, Brace ($2.50).

OLD JULES-- Mari Sandoz-- Little, Brown ($3).

ORDEAL BY FIRE-- Fletcher Pratt-- Smith & Haas ($3).

PERSONAL HISTORY--Vincent Sheean-- Doubleday, Doran ($3).

R. E. LEE (Vols. Ill & IV)--Douglas Southall Freeman--Scribner ($7.50).

RESTLESS DAYS-- Lilo Linke-- Knopf ($3).

ROAD TO WAR--AMERICA: 1914-1917-- Walter Millis--Houghton Mifflin ($3 ).

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 1917-1921 (Vols. I & II)--William Henry Chamberlin--Macmillan ($10).

SAWDUST CAESAR--George Seldes--Harper ($3).

SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM--T. E. Lawrence--Doubleday, Doran ($5).

THERE'S ALWAYS TOMORROW-- Marguerite Harrison-- Farrar & Rinehart ($3-50).

"THE TWENTIES": Vol. VI of OUR TIMES--Mark Sullivan--Scribner ($3.75).

ULYSSES S. GRANT--William B. Hesseltime--Dodd, Mead ($4).

VACHEL LINDSAY--Edgar Lee Masters--Scribner ($3).

WITH NAPOLEON IN RUSSIA--General de Caulaincourt--Morrow ($3.75).

A YANKEE SAINT-- Robert Allerton Parker--Putnam ($3.75).

Verse

COLLECTED POEMS--C. Day Lewis-- Random House ($2.50).

DANCE OF FIRE--Lola Ridge--Smith & Haas ($2).

GUEST BOOK--Witter Bynner--Knopf ($1.50).

No THANKS--e. e. cummings--Golden Eagle Press ($2).

PANIC, A PLAY IN VERSE--Archibald MacLeish--Houghton Mifflin ($2).

POEMS-- Kenneth Fearing-- Dynamo ($1).

POEMS--Robert Fitzgerald--Arrow Editions ($2).

SELECTED POEMS--A. E.--Macmillan ($2).

SOLSTICE AND OTHER POEMS--Robinson Jeffers--Random House ($2.50).

THEORY OF FLIGHT--Muriel Rukeyser--Yale University Press ($2).

VIENNA-- Stephen Spender-- Random House ($1.25).

A WINTER DIARY AND OTHER POEMS-- Mark Van Doren--Macmillan ($1.90).

Criticism

THE ACHIEVEMENT OF T. S. ELIOT-- F. 0. Matthiessen-- Houghton Mifflin ($2.25).

THE DOUBLE AGENT--R. P. Blackmur--Arrow Editions ($3).

FROM ROUSSEAU TO PROUST--Havelock Ellis--Houghton Mifflin ($3.50).

THE INTELLIGENTSIA OF GREAT BRITAIN--Dmitri Mirsky--Covici, Friede ($2.50).

PERMANENCE AND CHANCE-- Kenneth Burke-- New Republic ($1).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.