Best of 1981

A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone. Three spiritually adrift gringos and a collection of exotic supporting players bump into their fates on the fringes of a Central American revolution.

Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike. The third adventure of Rabbit Angstrom finds the ex-jock older, thicker around the middle, but still faithful to his love affair with the fading American dream.

The White Hotel by D.M. Thomas. A dark age revolves around the solitary figure of a woman analyzed by Sigmund Freud and later killed by the Nazis at Babi Yar.

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. Several millenniums after nuclear catastrophe, a group of survivors huddles near "Cambry" (Canterbury) and tries to reinvent the English language and rediscover gunpowder.

The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving. The author of The World According to Garp introduces a sweet, dangerous dreamer who transports his odd family from New England to the city of waltzes and Wittgenstein.

NONFICTION

The Hour of Our Death by Philippe Aries. One of France's most brilliant and original sociologists traces 1,000 years of changing attitudes about dying, grief and funerals.

Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917-1961 edited by Carlos Baker. Through four decades, Papa ranges forth on subjects that include the state of his art and the condition of his reputation, marriages and bowels.

Lectures on Russian Literature by Vladimir Nabokov. The master talks about the subject he knows and loves best: the classics written in the first of his native tongues.

Mrs. Harris: The Death of the Scarsdale Diet Doctor by Diana Trilling. The murder of Herman Tarnower and the trial of Jean Harris are given a shrewd, unforgiving analysis by a critic with literary and moral sensibilities.

Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession by Janet Malcolm. By using the confidences of a pseudonymous psychotherapist, a witty and provocative reporter puts the "talking cure" on the couch, and wisely prescribes further treatment.

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