Publishers Weekly articles from May 1993

Publishers Weekly archives from May 1993

Crown book by abused youth is questioned, then vindicated. ('A Rock and a Hard Place: One Boy's Triumphant Story' by Anthony Godby Johnson, published by Crown Books Corp.)
May 31, 1993... Two days after the publication of last week's issue of Newsweek--which contained an article casting serious doubt on the actual existence of a teenager terminally ill with AIDS whose autobiography was recently published by Crown--a national...

Reed Elsevier in French move. (Reed Elsevier buys a majority stock holding in Editions Techniques as a first move in acquiring the company) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... The Anglo-Dutch Reed Elsevier group has taken a majority stake in one of France's leading legal and medical publishers, Editions Techniques, which dates back to 1907 and publishes many essential tools for the French legal profession. Last...

Big first quarter loss at Western; will shed ad unit. (Western Publishing Company Inc.)
May 31, 1993... The net loss that Western Publishing Group chairman Richard Bernstein predicted for the first quarter ended May 1, 1993 (News, April 26), turned out to be a whopper--$45.3 million. While the loss includes $14.8 million for an accounting...

Durkin Hayes back in profit in '92. (1992 sales rose 33%) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... A change in marketing strategy helped bring about a rebound at Durkin Hayes Publishing in 1992. The Ontario-based publisher of spoken-word audio and children's books reported net income of C$671,683 in 1992, compared to a net loss of C$34,686...

Sales up 29% at Books-A-Million. (Books-A-Million Inc. report for the first quarter ending May 1, 1993) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Books-A-Million reported a 29.1% increase in sales for the first quarter ended May 1, 1993 to $23.5 million. Operating profit in the quarter increased 44.6%, to $872,000, while net income soared 190% to $575,000. During the quarter,...

World Book revenues down 21% in 1992. (World Book Inc. reports 1992 revenues of $246.1 million) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... The discontinuation of its syndication business in December 1991 resulted in lower sales, but higher operating profits, at World Book Encyclopedia in 1992. According to parent company Berkshire Hathaway's annual report, World Book revenues...

Agents group issues position paper on electronic rights. (Association of Authors' Representatives agrees that rights usually should be conveyed to the publisher, but with author approval) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... The Association of Authors' Representatives has agreed, in a new position paper on electronic rights, that such rights, with certain provisions, should in most cases be conveyed to the publisher--though it stressed that the author should have...

National Book Award deadlines. (entries must be received by July 15, 1993, and the Awards Dinner will take place on November 17th) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... National Book Awards entry forms must be received in the offices of the National Book Foundation no later than July 15. Judges, whose addresses are listed on the forms, must receive books, galleys or manuscripts no later than July 31....

Carol Publishing inks deal with Learning Annex. (Carol Publishing Group will publish books by Learning Annex instructors) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Carol Publishing has announced an agreement with the Learning Annex, New York City's popular how-to and self-improvement adult education center, to publish a series of books compiled and edited by the Learning Annex instructors. The...

Edelman stays with Beacon for book on black families. (Marian Wright Edelman plans a September, 1994, book for Beacon Press) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund and author of last year's surprise bestseller The Measure of Our Success, has signed to publish her next book with Beacon Press for what was described as a "substantial" advance....

Atrium is America's fastest growing distributor. (Atrium Publishers Group) (Company Profile)
May 31, 1993... Atrium Publishing Group--located a three-hour drive north of San Francisco in Lower Lake, Calif.--is the fastest-growing distributor in the United States. The New Age-oriented company owes this growth to Dawson Church, the company's CEO, who...

Book printing sales increase 7% at Donnelly; still 11% of total. (R.R. Donnelley and Sons Co. reports $461.2 million in book printing sales for 1992) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Book printing generated 11% of R. R. Donnelley's sales in 1992, the same percentage it represented in 1991, according to the giant printer's 1992 annual report. Total book printing sales in the year were $461.2 million, a 7.1% increase over...

Leading U.K. book club to open bookstore chain. (Book Club Associates plans to open three bookstores in 1993) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Book Club Associates, Britain's leading book club, with more than two million members and sales in Britain of over 100 million [pounds] ($150 million), will open three bookstores this summer and fall that, if sales match expectations, will be...

Cross makes substantial new investment in John Wiley. (investor Ted Cross acquires 29,047 class B shares and 43,570 class A shares of John Wiley and Sons Inc.) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... The improved operating results of John Wiley & Sons has apparently caught the attention of publishing investor Ted Cross. Cross, who at one time controlled a significant stake in the company, acquired 43,570 class A shares and 29,047 class B...

Visual publishers, electronics giants signing for MILIA. (first International Illustrated Book and New Media Publishing Market fair to be held January 15-18, 1994, in Cannes, France) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... An impressive group of publishers and producers of books, software and hardware have signed up for the first MILIA (whose formal designation is International Illustrated Book and New Media Publishing Market), scheduled for next January 15-18...

Need for state support for East European books stressed. (book industry workshop, sponsored by Pubwatch and the Council of Europe, held in Sofia, Bulgaria) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... "There's no way we can do without state support." This was the forthright view expressed by Ognemir Kirov, head of Atlandida Publishing in Sofia, Bulgaria, toward the end of a four-day workshop on state support for book industries held in...

U.K.'s biggest nonfiction prize. (1993 NCR Book Award presented to Peter Hennessy for 'Never Again') (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Britain's biggest nonfiction prize, the NCR Book Award, worth 25,000 [Pounds] (about $40,000), was presented May 20 to academic and journalist Peter Hennessy for his Never Again (Cape), a study of Britain in the immediate post-World War II...

ALA, publishers protest library funding cuts. ('Write for America's Libraries' campaign being planned by the American Library Association and supported by the publishing industry) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... With financial support from publishers and a number of celebrities, the American Library Association has undertaken a "Write for America's Libraries" campaign, designed to urge legislators around the country to stop cutting funds for...

Nick Hern launches new U.K. house. (Nick Hern Books will be an independent publisher in the United Kingdom) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Nine months after theater publisher Nick Hern left Random House UK, Nick Hern Books has reemerged as an independent house. Hern, who joined Random after falling out with his then parent Walker Books, has negotiated a deal with a number of...

Sales increase 15% at EDC. (Educational Development Corp. reports $6.4 million in sales for the fiscal year ending on February 28, 1993) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Educational Development Corp., the Tulsa, Okla.-based company that distributes the Usborne line in the U.S., reported sales of $6.4 million in the fiscal year ended February 28, 1993, an increase of 15% over fiscal 1992. Net earnings rose...

Behind the bestsellers. (includes related information on best-selling hardcover and paperback book ratings for May 31, 1993) (Column)
May 31, 1993... A CROWDED SPRING In what one publicist termed "the most crowded spring in several years," competition at the top of the bestseller list is heating up. Neither of the two new fiction titles that catapulted onto the list this week,...

Viking Portable: still carried away after 50 years. (Viking Portable Library golden anniversary celebrated by Penguin USA with a repackaging of many of the titles and a marketing campaign) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... To commemorate the Golden Anniversary of what started out as a quick-fix for demand by World War II soldiers for portable literature, Penguin USA has repackaged many of the Viking Portable Library titles and announced a bookstore marketing...

Book Passage checks in with lending library. (Book Passage bookstore in Corte Madera, California, has started a rental service of about 30 book titles, as well as audio tapes and video tapes) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Book Passage, Corte Madera, Calif., has begun a rental service, "one of those old ideas whose time has come again," as co-owner Bill Petrocelli put it. Under the program, some 30 hardcover fiction and mystery titles and selected audiotapes...

New standards at BISAC; X12 moves along. (standards adopted at Book Industry Systems Advisory Committee meeting) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... At the last Book Industry Systems Advisory Committee meeting, on May 21, several new standards were approved, which means the committee is well on the way to having X12 standards for all data elements that are used in the electronic...

An owner's story: the closing of the oldest bookstore. (owner David Epstein closes a 158-year-old bookstore in Hartford, Connecticut, because of superstore competition and a poor economy) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... On May 31, David Epstein, owner of the oldest continuously operated bookstore in the country, closed the doors on the 158-year-old Huntington's in downtown Hartford, Conn. He attributed the closing to superstore competition and the recession....

Borders in New York City debut. (Borders Books and Music may open a store in the City Coliseum in New York, New York) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Borders Books & Music is one of the Kmart subsidiaries that may open in New York City's Coliseum, the former convention center on Columbus Circle, New York magazine has reported. The stores in the 1.2-million-square-foot site would include a...

Activist press in pursuit of values-based economics. (New Society Publishers)
May 31, 1993... It's a mystery, to Barbara Brandt at least, why a lumber company's felling a tree should be considered part of "the economy," while a neighborhood group's planting a tree should not. "It's crazy," says Brandt, a community activist based in...

Double reissue of literary erotica; a sudden influx of the works of Marco Vassi. (Second Chance Press and Masquerade Books to reissue works by erotic writer Marco Vassi) (Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Some describe him as a poet of eros; others as a purveyor of budget-rack titillation. To Maurice Girodias, founder of Olympia Press and first publisher of Henry Miller, Marco Vassi was "the next Miller." In The Secret Record, a history of...

The changing scene in journal publishing.
May 31, 1993... The business of STM-refereed journal publishing is going to be very different in five years time; and I think the changes that will take place will be orders of magnitude greater than those in the past five years. The pace of change is...

Battling the boomerang. (book returns)(includes related articles on wholesalers and on the need for an industry study)
May 31, 1993... As returns continue to be a problem in certain segments of the book business, deep discounting in exchange for nonreturnability has made incremental steps toward greater acceptance. At least one major New York house is considering instituting...

Anne Lamont: the California writer talks about the birth of her son and the rebirth of her career. (PW Interviews)
May 31, 1993... There's a picture on the wall of Anne Lamott's kitchen that signifies almost everything in her work: intelligence and compassion, kindness and humor, and a deep sadness. Ifs a photograph of Abraham Lincoln, taken on the day before he died....

Crypt 33: The Saga of Marilyn Monroe - The Final Word.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Adela Gregory and Milo Speriglio. Birch Lane, $21.95 (400p) ISBN 1-55972-125-1 L.A. private investigators Gregory and Speriglio recount anew the almost mythic tale of Marilyn Monroe's rise to stardom, her marriages and affairs. The...

Vegas P.I.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Lake Headley II with William Hoffman. Thunder's Mouth, $22.95 (298p) ISBN 1-56025-057-7 For 30 years, Headley, who died in 1992, worked as a private investigator in Las Vegas. This account of his career, written with Hoffman, his...

A Writer's Diary: vol. 1, 1873-1876.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated and annotated by Kenneth Lantz, introductory study by Gary Saul Morson. Northwestern Univ., $49.95 ISBN 0-8101-1094-6 Was Dostoevsky's A Writer's Diary "a daring experiment in form," an integral work of art,...

For Country, Cause and Leader: The Civil War Journal of Charles B. Haydon.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Edited by Stephen W. Sears. Ticknor & Fields, $25 (362p) ISBN 0-295-66360-1 This engaging journal covers the brief military career of a member of a Michigan regiment which took part in the battle of Bull Run, the Peninsula campaign,...

The Moral Sense.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... James Q. Wilson. Free Press, $22.95 (300p) ISBN 0-02-935405-6 In this age of self-gratification and widespread lawlessness, Wilson (Thinking A bout Crime) takes the unfashionable view that a moral sense is part of our basic nature, albeit...

Teach Your Children How to Think.
May 31, 1993... Edward de Bono. Viking, $22 ISBN 0-670-83013-5 Some parents may be confused by this busy primer, while others will agree with the author's premise that creative thinking skills can be directly taught. De Bono, a business and educational...

Consuming Culture: Why You Eat What You Eat.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Jeremy MacClancy. Holt, $23 (247p) ISBN 0-8050-2578-2 This sly, rollicking cross-cultural account of eating and "alimentary extremists" may put some readers off their food. MacClancy (To Kill a Bird with Two Stones), a fellow of the Royal...

The Nature of Rationality.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Robert Nozick. Princeton Univ., $19.95 ISBN 0-691-07424-0 To Harvard philosophy professor Nozick, rationality and belief are each an evolutionary adaptation to a world that changes in nonregular ways. Our acts resonate with symbolic...

The Art of Light and Space.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Jan Butterfield. Abbeville, $55 (288p) ISBN 1-55859-272-5 Light and Space art, a movement that began in Southern California in the late 1960s, uses glass, cast acrylic, phosphorescent materials, floor lights and so forth to evoke the...

Cavaliers and Roundheads: The English Civil War, 1642-1649.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Christopher Hibbert. Scribner's, $27.50 (384p) ISBN 0-684-19557-7 As King Charles I was led to his execution, guards blew smoke into his face. This vividly dramatic, engrossing chronicle of the English Civil War is crammed with such...

Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Peter Block. Berrett-Koehler (Publishers' Group West, dist.), $24.95 (256p) ISBN 1-881052-28-1 Block (The Empowered Manager), a professional in organizational training, runs riot with assumptions about human nature. Reaching for the...

The Pirate Prince: Discovering the Priceless Treasure of the Sunken Ship Whydah.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Barry Clifford with Peter Turchi. Simon & Schuster, $21 (256p) ISBN 0-671-76824-7 As a child, Clifford listened to his uncle's stories about pirates and dreamed of treasure; his favorite was that of Black Sam Bellamy and Whydah, sunk off...

Polluting for Pleasure.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Andre Mele. Norton, $22.95 (224p) ISBN 0-393-03510-7 Stating that "we have clearly failed in our stewardship" of the environment, boat builder and sailor Mele offers a pointed, if sometimes technical, indictment of the recreational boat...

The Opening of the Apartheid Mind: Options for the New South Africa.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley. Univ. of California, $25 (200p) ISBN 0-520-08199-4 Adam and Moodley, authors of the prescient 1986 book South Africa Without Apartheid, offer a sophisticated, accessible analysis of South Africa's recent...

A Spy in Canaan: My Life as a Jewish-American Businessman Spying for Israel in Arab Lands.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Howard H. Schack with H. Paul Jeffers. Birch Lane, $19.95 (256p) ISBN 1-55972-178-2 Dismayed by Israel's vulnerability during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Schack, an American who headed a construction firm, volunteered his services to the...

In Search of Heaven on Earth.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Rachel Storm. Bloomsbury (Trafalgar Square, dist.), $34.95 (234p) ISBN 0-7475-0550-0 Today's New Age revival, writes Storm, is a "vast umbrella movement" held together by the conviction that a planetary shift in consciousness will usher...

The Linguistics Wars.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Randy Allen Harris. Oxford Univ., $30 (352p) ISBN 0-19-507256-1 In this evenhanded, trenchant and witty academic chronicle, Harris looks at the fierce, acrimonious controversies that have rocked linguistics since the 1950s. At center...

Jesus Acted Up: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Robert Goss. Harper San Francisco, $19 (256p) ISBN 0-06-063318-2 In this audacious work, a former Jesuit priest throws down the gauntlet, challenging organized religion to abandon its homophobia, closeted clerics to come out of the closet...

Getting Unscrewed and Staying That Way: The Sourcebook of Consumer Protection.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... David Klein, Marymae E. Klein and Douglas D. Walsh. Holt, $25 (320p) ISBN 0-8050-2590-1 Even if you've been ripped off, persistence, ingenuity and "the courage of your convictions" can help you to achieve redress, stress Walsh, the State...

The Theft of the Spirit: A Journey to Spiritual Healing with Native Americans.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Carl A. Hammerschlag. Simon & Schuster, $17 (256p) ISBN 0-671-78023-9 Hammerschlag (The Dancing Healers), for 14 years Chief of Psychiatry with the Indian Health Service, explains in this well-told memoir how he learned from Native...

Winning Ugly: Mental Warfare in Tennis - Tales from the Tour and Lessons from a Master.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Brad Gilbert and Steve Jamison. Birch Lane, $18.95 (208p) ISBN 1-55972-169-3 Gilbert's first coach summed up his play thus: "No forehand. No backhand. No volley. Weak serve." What has carried him to the ranks of the top five in 11 years...

From Freedom to Slavery: The Rebirth of Tyranny in America.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Gerry Spence. St. Martin's, $17.95 (192p) ISBN 0-312-09467-1 Noted Wyoming trial lawyer Spence (Gunning for Justice) is a veteran rhetorician, but this "collection for free-floating thoughts about freedom" lacks organization and offers...

Time Flies When You're Alive: A Love Story.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Paul Linke. Birch Lane, $16.95 (160p) ISBN 1-55972-183-9 First presented as a one-man show in Los Angeles, this candid, lovingly humorous tribute to actor Linke's musician wife, "Chex," recounts the valiant, two-year battle she waged...

Alone: The Man Who Braved the Vast Pacific - And Won.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Gerard d'Aboville, translated by Richard Seaver, introduction by George Plimpton. Arcade, $19.95 (176p) ISBN 1-55970-218-4 On July 11, 1991, d'Aboville set out from Chosi, Japan, to row across the Pacific Ocean. One hundred and...

Greenwich Village: Culture and Counterculture.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Edited by Rick Beard and Leslie Berlowitz. Museum of the City of New York/ Rutgers Univ., $29.95 until Dec. 31, $34.95 thereafter ISBN 0-8135-1946-2 Everything you ever wanted to know about Manhattan's Greenwich Village is contained in...

Rayford W. Logan and the Dilemma of the African-American Intellectual.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Kenneth Robert Janken. Univ. of Massachusetts, $35 (320p) ISBN 0-87023-858-2 This interesting academic biography portrays Rayford W. Logan (1897-1982) as a scholar and "diligent second-tier leader" in the civil rights struggle. Janken,...

Frank Rizzo: The Last Big Man in Big City America.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... S. A. Paolantonio. Camino, $22 (412p) ISBN 0-940159-18-X This well-researched, savvy biography limns the unlikely career of Frank Rizzo (1920-1991), who won mayoral nominations in Philadelphia from both major parties, maintaining power...

Rabin of Israel.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Robert Slater. St. Martin, $23.95 ISBN 0-312-09368-3 Updating a 1977 book, this brisk political biography profiles Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin as a centrist with a rare combination of toughness and flexibility. Through interviews...

Rivers in the Desert: William Mulholland and the Inventing of Los Angeles.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Margaret Leslie Davis. HarperCollins, $24 (294p) ISBN 0-06-016698-3 Davis (Lovers, Doctors and the Law) offers an arresting biography of William Mulholland, the visionary Los Angeles Water Department engineer who designed the Owens Valley...

Father Love: What We Need, What We Seek, What We Must Create.
May 31, 1993... Richard Louv. Pocket, $21 ISBN 0-671-79420-5 An estimated 40% of children of divorced parents haven't seen their fathers in at least a year, and more than half of those youngsters have never been in their fathers' homes. Studies quoted by...

Once They Moved Like the Wind: Cochise, Geronimo and the Apache Wars.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... David Roberts. Simon & Schuster, $24 (320p) ISBN 0-671-70221-1 During the westward settlement, for more than 20 years Apache tribes eluded both U.S. and Mexican armies, and by 1886 an estimated 9000 armed men were in pursuit. Roberts...

Vectors to Spare: The Life of an Air Traffic Controller.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Milovan S. Brenlove. Iowa State Univ., $24.95 (240p) ISBN 0-8138-0471-X Now an assistant professor of aviation at Daniel Webster College in New Hampshire, Brenlove spent 12 years between 1974 and 1989 as an air traffic controller. At...

Adultery: The Forgivable Sin - Healing the Inherited Patterns of Betrayal in Your Family.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Bonnie Eaker Weil with Ruth Winter, foreward by Thomas Fogarty, M.D. Birch Lane, $17.95 (192p) ISBN 1-55972-185-5 Everybody but your maiden aunt appears in this somewhat disorganized but ultimately helpful book. Woody and Mia mix it up...

Crazy in Alabama.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Mark Childress. Putnam, $22.95 (383p) ISBN 0-399-13855-2 Family tumult and nationwide social unrest converge to shake the world of 12-year-old orphan Peejoe Bullis in the summer of 1965, "when everybody went crazy in Alabama." This wise,...

Psyche.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Peter Michalos. Doubleday/Talese, $20 (272p) ISBN 0-385-42405-1 An ambitious and intriguing debut, this novel opens in 1939, when Sigmund Freud obtains the diaries of one of his first patients and decides to combine them with his own...

Out of Work.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Greg Mulcahy. Knopf, $21 (224p) ISBN 0-679-41967-5 Reading this strong debut collection of 16 very short stories and one long novella is like browsing through an album of stark black-and-white photographs. Thematically linked by the...

Blue Bamboo: Tales of Fantasy and Romance.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Osamu Dazai, translated by Ralph F. McCarthy. Kodansha, $22 (200p) ISBN 4-77001-738-3 Dazai (Self Portraits) was one of Japan's foremost writers before his premature death in 1948 at the age of 39. His range extended from the...

Fan Mail.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Ronald Munson. Dutton, $20 (320p) ISBN 0-525-93624-6 Told entirely through faxes, phone conversations, letters, police memos, E-mail and taped conversations, this wickedly entertaining thriller brings the epistolary novel into the...

Honey Dust.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Sue Cameron. Warner, $18.95 (356p) ISBN 0-446-51513-2 Cameron, former columnist for the Hollywood Reporter and currently a writer for Beverly Hills 213, makes her fiction debut with a lackluster saga about three generations of Hollywood...

Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Joyce Carol Oates. Abrahams/Dutton, $21 (288p) ISBN 0-525-93632-7 "It was between the ages of thirteen and seventeen that I belonged to FOXFIRE and FOXFIRE made sacred those years." Madeleine Faith Wirtz narrates Oates's 22nd novel in...

Stones of the Dalai Lama.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Ken Mitchell. Soho (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, dist.), $22 (334p) ISBN 0-939149-79-6 In this far-fetched yarn, better suited to an Indiana Jones movie than contemporary fiction, Bob Harlow, a down-and-out professor at the University of...

Streets of Laredo.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Larry McMurtry. Simon & Schuster, $25 (864p) ISBN 0-671-79281-4 Those who have been waiting, through several comparatively disappointing novels, for an appropriate sequel to the memorable and Pulitzer-winning Lonesome Dove can take heart....

Zaddik.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... David Rosenbaum. Mysterious, $19.95 (448p) ISBN 0-89296-540-1 Rosenbaum is a writer to watch. His first thriller is big, bright and successfully old-fashioned, bringing to life worlds unfamiliar to most readers. Manhattan's bustling West...

Pilgrimage to Dzhvari: A Woman's Journey of Spiritual Awakening.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Valeria Alfeyeva, translated by Stuart and Jenny Robertson. Harmony/ Bell Tower, $22 (336p) ISBN 0-517-59194-4 In this loosely autobiographical novel translated from the Russian, Alfeyeva describes her search for spiritual serenity and a...

The Five-Dollar Smile: And Other Stories.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Shashi Tharoor. Arcade, $19.95 (192p) ISBN 1-55970-225-7 Although Tharoor wrote most of these 15 precocious tales in his teens and early 20s, they display the gift for sparkling social satire and sharp observation of life in India that he...

Until Proven Guilty.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Christine McGuire. Pocket, $20 (368p) ISBN 0-671-70511-9 McGuire, a California prosecutor who made her literary debut with an account of a real-life sexual enslavement case (Perfect Victim), turns her attention to crime fiction with...

The Swedish Cavalier.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Leo Perutz, translated by John Brownjohn. Arcade, $19.95 (192p) ISBN 1-55970-170-6 Written in the style of an 18th-century adventure, Perutz's leisurely tale of switched identities and reversals of fortune concerns a nameless thief...

Covenant of the Poppies.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Colin D. Peel. St. Martin's/Dunne, $17.95 (224p) ISBN 0-312-09264-4 A prolific New Zealander with some 20 novels to his credit, Peel has mastered one of the fundamentals of thriller writing: keep the action fast and furious, so the...

Throwing Roses.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Elizabeth Ridley. Permanent, $21.95 (131p) ISBN 1-877946-29-X When Branda Raggan nearly dies in a car accident, her mother Margaret, a larger-than-life saloon-keeper and former country-western singer, does everything possible to help the...

Tommy Was Here.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Simon Corrigan. Andre Deutsch (Trafalgar Square, dist.), $22.95 (187p) ISBN 0-233-98784-3 In this promising first novel, Imogen Holm, the fiercely devoted mother of four musicians, leaves London for Paris in a desperate search for her...

Prime Witness.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Steve Martini. Putnam, $21.95 (384p) ISBN 0-399-13802-1 "The ugly marketplace of justice"--as one character terms the judicial process--is scrutinized with a riveting, you-are-there immediacy in the new legal procedural by the author of...

The Wild Mother.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Elizabeth Cunningham. Station Hill (Talman Co., dist.), $18.95 (304p) ISBN 0-88268-147-8 Captivating archetypal characters dramatize the everyday magic of self-discovery in a work as intriguing as Cunningham's previous novel, The Return...

Cuervo Tales.(Brief Article)
May 31, 1993... Robert Roper. Ticknor & Fields, $19.95 ISBN 0-89919-988-7 These tales take place in the mountains of northern California and recall a town--called Cuervo--that has figured as a renegade community since the first Mexican settlers wiped out...