Recent Books

THE LONG WAY HOME--Sylvia Chatfield Bates -- Harcourt, Brace ($2.50). Lengthy odyssey of a beautiful upState New York old maid, whose luck, thanks to a pioneer inheritance of pagan stamina, turns into an old maid's dream when she is 42.

BROTHER PETROC'S RETURN--S. M. C. --Little, Brown ($1.75). In this primly anonymous novel, a 15th Century Cornwall monk, entranced four centuries, comes back to a life of childish bewilderment.

THE MERRY, MERRY MAIDENS--Helen Grace Carlisle--Harcourt, Brace ($2.50). An ordinary novel about six ordinary maidens, taking them unmerrily from innocent girls-club days through to wistful disillusionment.

THE CHUTE--Albert Halper--Viking ($2.50). This story of life in a big Chicago mail-order house is more powerful, more understanding, than Author Halpers previous novels (Union Square, The Foundry) but his ambition still surpasses his ability.

Non-Fiction

HOLLYWOOD THROUGH THE BACK DOOR -- E. Nils Holstius -- Longmans, Green ($2.50). Open-mouthed travelog of an English gramophone executive who tried to crash Hollywood as a scenarist, sometimes roamed Los Angeles disguised as a bum; told with minute, deadly earnestness as if he were the first white man to see the place.

SELECTED WRITINGS OF THOMAS DE QUINCEY--Edited by Philip Van Doren --Random House ($3.50). Generous, nicely packaged, freshly kept sample comprising about one-eighth of the English Opium-Eater's 17-vol. works.

GREAT LEVELER -- Thomas Frederick Woodley--Stackpole ($3.50). Cautious mud-removal job on "the most despicable, malevolent and morally deformed character who has ever risen to high power in America," clubfooted, sardonic, bachelor Thaddeus Stevens, Lincoln's powerful House whip, hard-bitten champion of the Reconstruction Act, the 14th Amendment, Andrew Johnson's impeachment.

THE FINER COOKING--X. M. Boulestin --Oxford University Press ($5). Discourse by a learned London chef on the "Ninth Art," filled with literary and historical allusions and 308 recipes of everything from soups to sundries. Two volumes: one with decorations by J. E. Laboureur, for the lady of the house; the other, of recipes only, for the cook.

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