Books: RECENT & READABLE, Apr. 30, 1951

Hangsamcm, by Shirley Jackson. An eerie story of a young girl’s descent into schizophrenia (TIME, April 23).

The Miraculous Barber, by Marcel Ayme. A dry and mocking satire of French life on the eve of World War II by one of the best contemporary French novelists (TIME, April 23).

The Morning Watch, by James Agee. Good Friday’s overwhelming effect on a twelve-year-old (TIME, April 23).

A King’s Story. The memoirs of the Duke of Windsor (TIME, April 16).

The Caine Mutiny, by Herman Wouk. The saga of a minesweeper with a misfit skipper and level-headed juniors; high-grade realism in a story of World War II (TIME, April 9).

Thirty Years with G.B.S., by Blanche Patch. Shaw through the eyes of a secretary who was never “swept away” (TIME, April 9).

The Tolstoy Home, by Tatiana Su-khotin-Tolstoy. Life with a father who also happened to be one of the eccentric geniuses of modern history (TIME, April 9).

Journey for Our Time, by Astolphe de Custine. The travels and disillusionments of a French aristocrat who went to Russia in 1839 and found a police state (TIME, April 2).

Conjugal Love, by Alberto Moravia. A novel of the ecstasies and cruelties of married love; Moravia’s best yet (TIME, March 26).

Darkness and Day, by Ivy Compton-Burnett. Genteel English characters gossip unconventionally about life, death and each other (TIME, March 26).

Festival, by J. B. Priestley. Highly topical hijinks about how the Festival of Britain hits a fictional English town (TIME, March 26).

Judgment on Deltchev, by Eric Ambler. A thriller, first in ten years, by the author of A Coffin for Dimitrios (TIME, March 19).

Sink ‘Em All, by Charles A. Lockwood; Battle Submerged, by Harley Cope and Walter Karig. The coming of age of the U.S. submarine service in World War II (TIME, March 5).

From Here to Eternity, by James Jones. Man’s inhumanity to man in the prewar Army; an eloquent four-lettered blast by an angry first novelist (TIME, Feb. 26).