FICTION

UTZ by Bruce Chatwin (Penguin: $7.95). Czechoslovak thoughts of freedom are weighed down by his attachment to material possessions.

CAT’S EYE by Margaret Atwood (Bantam: $5.95). Retrospective of a Canadian woman’s art forces the same in her private life.

SPIRIT OF THE HILLS by Dan O’Brien (Washington Square Press: $6.95). The separate conflicts of three individuals entwine and culminate in The Black Hills of South Dakota .

WISHES by Jude Deveraux (Pocket: $4.50). An angel intercedes in the lives of two sisters attracted to the same man.

A REGENCY CHRISTMAS: Five Stories by Anita Mills, Patricia Rice, Mary Balogh, Gayle Buck, Edith Layton (Signet: $3.95). Some of the this genre’s best writer’s holiday offerings.

NONFICTION

PARTING THE WATERS: America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch (Touchstone: $14.95). Multi-award-winning chronicle of Martin Luther King Jr.’s and lesser known hero’s herculean efforts to ensure civil rights for the disenfranchised.

RETREAT, HELL!: We’re Just Attacking In Another Direction by Jim Wilson (Pocket: $4.50). Wilson, a journalist, interviews some of the first U.S. Marine combatants in the Korea War.

THE LITERARY JOURNALISTS edited by Norman Sims (Ballantine: $8.95). Cadre of fiction writers, e.g. Wolf, Didion, Mailer, whose journalistic skills and instincts have identified them as bellwethers of American thought.

WAVERLY PLACE by Susan Brownmiller (Signet: $4.95). Factional (fiction based on fact) account of the Lisa Stienberg child-abuse case which resulted in her death and the revelation of illegal adoption, also chronic drug- and wife-abuse.

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things by Robert Fulghum (Ivy: $5.95). Unitarian minister sorts out the dross of an often harried and complex society.