Recent Books

VILLAGE CHRONICLE--James McConnaughey--Farrar & Rinehart ($2.50). A slice of life in a Carolina college town, centering about the behavior of a young English instructor who rashly challenges the established color-line, backs down under the pressure of community ostracism and an ailing wife.

RETURN TO COOLAMI--Eleanor Dark-- Macmillan ($2.50). Author Dark makes conservative use of the stream-of- consciousness technique in a carefully manipulated account of a two-day motor trip in Australia, during which a serious marital tangle is straightened out.

THE INVISIBLE VOICES--M. P. Shiel-- Vanguard ($2.50). Those who can retain their wits in a bout with Author Shiel's peculiar development of prose, his highly individualistic use of punctuation, may find diversion in his latest romantic mystery.

WIND WHICH MOVED A SHIP--Sophia Cleugh--Doubleday, Doran ($2). Witty enough to recall Rose Macaulay, too superficial to survive the comparison, Author Cleugh recounts the amorous and professional adventures of a beauteous, strongwilled, British concert pianist.

So FAIR A HOUSE--Welbourn Kelley-- Morrow ($2.50). Reports the trials of a Carolina gentleman-writer and mill-owner who, already harassed by the task of bringing up three children in the absence of a philandering wife, becomes involved in a local labor war. Crammed with action and sexual intrigue, saturated with heavy sentiment, this chaotic melodrama reveals a disturbing picture of life in the South.

DAY OF IMMENSE SUN--Blair Niles-- Bobbs-Merrill ($2.50). Historical romance set in 16th Century Peru. Author Niles, who spent two years on the scene absorbing local color, researching into Inca lore, turns out a monument to industry, if not artistry.

PERELA -- Aldo Palazzeschi -- Vanni ($2.50). Virtually unreadable fantasy, in dialog form, dealing with the adventures of a "man of smoke" in a nameless kingdom. Prescribed by the publisher as good for what ails "the tired businessman; the psychiatrist, psychologist or Freudian; the political radical or conservative; the artist, philosopher or poet; the scholar, teacher or student," Perela should put them all to sleep in short order.

THE WEATHER IN THE STREETS--Rosamond Lehmann--Reynal & Hitchcock ($2.50). The author of Dusty Answer, Invitation to the Waltz follows a too-familiar modern pattern. Olivia leaves her literary husband, slips into a love affair with the Prince Charming of her girlhood, finds out he is not worth the trouble he makes her.

THE BEST SHORT STORIES: 1936-- Edited by Edward J. O'Brien--Houghton Mifflin ($2.50). The 22nd annual offering of one of the two best-known short- story annuals. The other: O. Henry Memorial Award, now in its 17th year.

Non-Fiction

GREEN MOUNTAINS TO SIERRAS--Zephine Humphrey--Dutton ($2.50). This record of the transcontinental motor tour of a Vermont painter and his wife makes pleasant reading, except for an occasional lapse into coyness. The Humphreys traveled for the winter on the price of their usual coal supply.

POLITICAL AND DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF RUSSIA -- George Vernadsky -- Little, Brown ($4). Traces, in unadorned academic language, the course of Russian history to the present day, devoting particular attention to early developments, skimping on post-revolutionary events.

Poetry

BOWERY PARADE--Stella Wynne Herron --Delphic Studios ($1.50). Thirteen poems of forceful protest against economic injustice.

Murders

JIG-TIME MURDERS--Charles G. Givens --Bobbs-Merrill ($2). Racy dialog, seething atmosphere, sound plot combine to make palatable to the mystery-addict a chronicle of three kinds of slaughter on a flooded Tennessee estate.

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