Recent Books

LAUGHTER IN THE WEST--L. A. G. Strong--Knopf ($2.50). The third book in three weeks (others: Common Sense About Drama, The Minstrel Boy) from prolific Author Strong. A rugged romance, laid in the English Dartmoor country 50 years back, in which an earthy farm beauty, her rough-&-ready mother, her good, bad and indifferent suitors, a devil in a tree strive to outdo the violence of the landscape.

RUMBIN GALLERIES--Booth Tarkington --Doubleday, Doran ($2.50). Booth Tarkington, turned 68 last July, can still turn out a book with pleasant facility, almost-patented grace. The present one, more a series of short stories than a connected novel, turns on the machinations of one Rumbin, fat, German, excitable art dealer, who oscillates between the brink of bankruptcy and nick-of-time coups. Tangent to his schemes are an honest, good-looking, slightly dumb assistant and a grey-eyed secretary. They, of course, turn into lovers. Some of the Rumbin stories appeared in the Satevepost.

Non-Fiction

THE VOYAGE OF FORGOTTEN MEN--Frank Thiess -- Bobbs-Merrill ($3.50). Solidly dramatized history of the Russian navy's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, with background emphasis on the Tsarist corruption which led to the fleet's annihilation at the battle of Tsushima after its epic 20,000-mi. voyage under command of much-maligned Admiral Rozhestvensky, whom Author Thiess attempts to vindicate.

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