The Books That Take Revenge, Centuries Later
A new history of the Red Scare prompts the question: Does literature still have enough influence to bring down the powerful?
Fiction
Books
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Who Came Up With That?
Contrary to what we think of as intellectual property, most ideas are difficult to trace back to one human mind.
The Questionable Triumph of the ‘Baling Wire Hippies’
Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog was seen as a countercultural milestone, but his new book reveals his alliances with the powerful.
What To Read
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Eight of the Most Fascinating Biographies to Read
Each is animated by the author’s love—for their subject, for language, and for pushing the boundaries of what the genre can do.
Six Books That Simply Must Be Talked About
These six books demand discussion—with a pal, a date, or a book club.
Nine Books to Reset Your View of the World
Each of these titles will widen your perspective, offering you original insight and vision.
Seven Books to Read When You Have No Time to Read
These titles are worth picking up, even if you have only a moment to spare.
The Scarlet Ibis
A short story
A Jar of Jam
A novelist and playwright, Valentin Kataev has a happy gift for writing about childhood and adolescence. His early novels, THE EMBEZZLERS, TIME, FORWARD!, and THE LONE WHITE SAIL, have been published in American editions, and his comedy of student life in Moscow, SQUARING THE CIRCLE, has been produced on the American stage and television. He is the editor and founder of YOUTH magazine, with a circulation of more than four hundred thousand readers.
The Easter Outing
Leonid Leonov’s novel THE THIEF, which appeared in 1927, is a panoramic story of the Moscow underworld in the early twenties. The central figure is Mitya Vekshin,a former aristocrat, then a Bolshevik, and finally, cut of his disillusionment with the Revolution, the leader of a gang of thieves. Opposed to him is Nikolai Zavarikhin,a shrewd, inexperienced peasant who has come to Moscow to make his fortune, legally or otherwise, and who falls in love with Mitya’s sister, Tanya. Tanya, a high-wire artist in the circus whose stage name is Hela, lives with her trainer, Pagel.
Uncle Ivan's Tale
The most celebrated of Russian novelists. MIKHAIL SHOLOKHOV made his reputation with his powerful classic AND QUIET FLOWS THE DON. The first volume of his second big novel, VIRGIN SOIL UPTURNED, dealing with collectivization among the Cossacks ,appeared in 1932. The concluding volume, from which this present episode is taken, has only recently been completed. His books are published in America by Alfred A. Knopf.
The Special Case
CHATM RAPHAEL, who has published under the pseudonym Jocelyn Davey, is a former Oxford don,currently a British government official, who draws upon his experience for his fiction. His first novel, A CAPITOL OFFENSE, was a spoof detective story set in the British Embassy in Washington, and his defective, Ambrose Usher, appears in his other novels. He has also written a number of short stories.
The Magician
JACKSON BURGESS has worked as a newspaperman and as a teacher in North Carolina and in Illinois, where he was editor of theCHICAGO REVIEWin 1952. For the past two years he has been a lecturer in the English department of the University of California. This is his first appearance in a magazine.
How My Love Was Sawed in Half
Playwright, novelist, and short-story writer, ROBERT FONTAINE is perhaps best remembered for his Broadway success, THE HAPPY TIME. Fontaine jans will enjoy his most recent book, THAT’S A GOOD QUESTION,a humorous guide to the writing trade recently published by The Writer.
The Battle of the Tractors
SERGEI ANTONOV, who was born in Leningrad in 1915, is well known for his deft and amusing satire. He was trained as a road-building engineer and is at home with tractors and bulldozers. He served at the front throughout the war and did not publish his first volume of stories until 1947. The narrative which follows is taken from his popular and mischievous novel of a cooperative farm, IT HAPPENED IN PENKOVO.
How the Mountains Are
An ATLANTIC discovery whose story, “The Surest Thing in Show Business,”won first prize among the Atlantic “Firsts” published last year,JESSE HILL FORDis a graduate of Vanderbilt University, studied under Andrew Lytle at the University of Florida, and is now in the process of establishing himself in Tennessee. He was awarded an Atlantic Grant of $2500 in 1959 to assist him in the completion of his novel.