HARVARD BOOKS OF THE MONTH

The extra-curricula reading of Harvard men this fall is apparently governed by a desire to get caught up with the non-fiction leaders of the last few years that are now appearing once again at the book shops in low-price reprint editions. Booksellers around the Square report that sales of dollar reprints run at times as high as fifty to one of the original issue. The really noteworthy thing about this trend to yesterday's best-sellers is that, with the exception of the popularity of certain novels in the new Bonibooks series, the undergraduates' interest seems for the most part focused on non-fiction books that are unually pooh-poohed in academic circles. Such old standbys as Wells' "Outline of History" and Durant's "Story of Philosophy" still stand near the top of the list, although Dimnet's "Art of Thinking" is at the moment the outstanding reprint success in Cambridge.

"The Education of Henry Adams" which recently came out at a dollar in the Riverside Library is probably second among the reprints, being one of the most attractive books in the field. De Kruif's "Microbe Hunters" and Ludwig's Library, are in great demand, according to all reports. A taste for books with a critical attitude towards present-day American life is reflected in the sales of "Our Business Civilization" by Adams and in the continued popularity of Chase's "Prosperity, Fact or Myth."

Two books by Lawrence, "The Captain's Doll" and "The Lost Lady", and Huysmans' "Against the Grain" are the only fiction titles reported to be in great demand in reprint issues. This may indicate that so far as fiction is concerned college men prefer to keep up to the minute. Such a conclusion is backed up by the predominance of fiction in the following list of best-selling new books:

Fiction

ON FORSYTE CHANGE--Galsworthy (Scribner's)

COMPLETE SHORT STORIES--Saki (Viking)

CAKES AND ALE--Maugham (Doubleday, Doran)

MEMOIRS OF AN INFANTRY OFFICER--Sasson (Coward-McCann)

A NOTE IN MUSIC--Lehmann (Holt)

ANGEL PAVEMENT--Priestley (Harpers)

THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED--Merrick (Dutton)

Poetry

GLORY OF THE NIGHTINGALE--Robinson (Macmillan)

THE GATES OF THE COMPASS--Hillyer (Viking)

JOHN DETH--Alken (Scribner's)

Non-Fiction

THE ADAMS FAMILY--Adams (Little, Brown)

THE STORY OF SAN MICHELE--Munthe (Dutton)

THE LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS--Edited by Ford (Houghton Mifflin)

Reviewed in this issue of the CRIMSON BOOKSHELF