The New Republic

The Nabokov-Wilson Letters: Correspondence between Vladimir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson, 1940-1971 Edited, annotated and with an introductory essay by Simon Karlinsky Harper & Row; $15 READ MORE >>

The Powers That Be by David Halberstam (Knopf; $15) READ MORE >>

Tyrants Destroyed By Vladimir Nabokov McGraw-Hill; $8.95 READ MORE >>

A few months back I sat down to watch a three-hour television special consisting of films from two of Elvis Presley's last concerts. I meant to watch the entire show, but after half an hour I had to turn it off. It was no pretty sight. The face was fat and dull-eyed, the body practically immobile, the voice mechanical. Take away the once-scandalous gyrations and the inimitable voice, and what was there? Elvis never wrote anything to speak of, never contributed any real innovations after his burst on the musical scene. READ MORE >>

Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by David J. Garrow (Yale University Press; $15.00) READ MORE >>

Some mystery writers turn out superbly crafted hooks so different from one another that each might also have had a separate author. Others write mysteries whose characters, scenery, viewpoint, concerns and style are so similar from hook to book that together they form a world of their own, personal to the author and recognizable to the reader as one recognizes the El Greco look or the Bartok sound. These authors are the universe makers, and Michael Avallone is one of them. READ MORE >>

Two Cheers for Capitalism by Irving Kristol (Basic; $10) READ MORE >>

In recent months one has been able to recognize a tense anxiety in many of the people in the photography community to do with whether the conquerable interest in serious, expressive photography, felt by a large segment of the educated public, will last. Is it a fad akin to those which may be consistently found in popular culture, or is this interest reflective of something more meaningful? Has it come too late? READ MORE >>

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin; $10.05) READ MORE >>

Vladimir Nabokov, 1899-1977 Nabokov's death at 78 came as a shock. He had such majestic self-confidence in his genius, his learning, in Nabokov as a Russian, Nabokov as an American, Nabokov as novelist, translator, scholar, entomologist, sportsman, political skeptic, that no writer could have more enjoyed and trusted life. There was so much gaiety and pride in being Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov that I imagined him, like his mischievously Olympian alter ego in Ada, living, loving and sporting virtually forever--a centenarian and genius exuding the same airy and humorous power. READ MORE >>