BOOKENDS

In its latest volume the author of a series of stories about Harvard has assembled a collection of trivia on subjects ranging from African hotels and earthquakes in Mexico to Theodore Roosevelt and the hoop--skirt. to the average reader they will appear as nothing more than a few sketches which Mr. Flanders might have discover by accident in a forgotten drawer of his desk then sent off to the publisher in a moment of weakness. To most of us they are lacking in interest: one might as well read Christopher Motley's collected essays and be done with them.

The opening story "The Rustle"-- is as clever a piece of writing as one could wish: it contains one of the best [is ever offered to a long--suffering public. The rest of the book is certainly far below the standard set at the start. Mr. Land has not done himself justice this time. He can write, as his publishers say, "with verve and wit;" in "LAQUACITIES," however, from page 19 on these characteristics are lacking.