A Letter From The Publisher, Oct. 13, 1958

GO out and see a show,” the moviemakers advertise. “Stay home and watch television,” the networks plead. “Ignore such frivolities,” urge the publishers, “and read a good book!” Surveying this relentless but stimulating competition for the public’s attention, TIME, beginning with this issue, launches a new weekly section that will present:

¶Capsule reviews of what TIME editors judge to be the best movies (U.S. and foreign) and plays (Broadway and on tour).

¶Capsule previews of the most promising television programs. Among the recommendations for this week: the return of Milton (“Mr. Television”) Berle to active duty, Jackie Gleason and Betsy Palmer in The Time of Your Life, TIME Cover Subject (Nov. 28, ’55) Julie Harris in Johnny Belinda. ¶The editors’ choices of the best current books, as well as TIME’S own bestseller list (what makes the best reading and the best selling will only occasionally coincide). The bestseller list is compiled from weekly wired reports by TIME correspondents in 22 U.S. cities, collated according to a statistical system of weighting (by sales volume) the bookstores polled. The list will report the news of what the nation is reading, more speedily and sensitively than other leading bestseller lists.

For this week’s choices and reports, see Time Listings.

NO man to rest on his staggering electoral triumph, France’s Charles de Gaulle last week moved directly to the land whose troubles brought him to power, and whose difficulties remain his biggest unsolved problem: Algeria. No ordinary colonial war, the Algerian revolt is the product of 128 years of conflict and cooperation, of intimacy and antagonism, between the French and Moslems of Algeria. The rebels who fight France hang out in Cairo, pray toward Mecca, but talk in French, and invoke the democratic ideals that France has taught them. For the story of the men and motives behind the savage struggle, see the cover story in FOREIGN NEWS, The Reluctant Rebel.

WHEN a big, secluded estate is rented by an eccentric couple who order beef by the side, buns by the gross—and when the delivery boy has to leave the supplies outside the fence —people are apt to be curious. For what a Buenos Aires cop discovered when he climbed the fence, see THE HEMISPHERE, Big Red Schoolhouse.

MAN’S best friend used to be forced to eat people food not fit for a dog. Now U.S. families are spending more for dog food than they are for baby’s. See BUSINESS, Oh, for a Dog’s Life.