Comet Halley: Once in a Lifetime, Mark...

Comet Halley: Once in a Lifetime, Mark Littmann and Donald K. Yeomans (American Chemical Society); The Mystery of Comets, Fred L. Whipple (Smithsonian); The Return of Halley’s Comet, Patrick Moore and John Mason (Warner). The best in the inevitable shower of topical books announcing the arrival of Halley’s comet. “ ‘Comet Halley’ delivers a strong sense of what comets are about, and what they have meant to people in the past, (while) ‘The Mystery of Comets’ is a thorough and satisfying exploration, ideal for those who want more science in their popular science. ‘The Return of Halley’s Comet’ also surveys the full range of topics, including how to take advantage of the December and April viewing opportunities” (David Brin).

Buying Time: An Anthology Celebrating 20 Years of the Literature Program of the National Endowment for the Arts, edited by Scott Walker (Graywolf Press). “A fine, well-balanced collection, ‘Buying Time’ is filled with happy surprises; it is a book of matches to be struck in the existential night” (Shelly Lowenkopf).

The Class of ‘49, Donald Carpenter (North Point) “combines a reporter’s eye for external detail with a novelist’s sense of inner depths. In ‘The Class of ‘49’ (Donald Carpenter) gives us a novel and two short stories that, while not adding up to much in a narrative sense, do portray a precise emotional landscape” (William Hochswender).

Handbook of Russian Literature, edited by Victor Terras (Yale). “The finest of its kind that I have seen in any language, including Russian” (Michael Heim).