Books: The Editors Like

THE CHAIN AND THE LINK by David Miller. (World, $3.50.) Russia at the time of Napoleon’s invasion is the background of this story of a young Jew’s spiritual questing. Both contemplative and dramatic — with its mystical overtones, its sensuous love strand, its glimpses of war — Mr. Miller’s first novel is a solid achievement.

PROUD NEW FLAGS by F. van Wyck Mason, (Lippineott, $3.00.) One of the macstros of the historical novel turns his hand to the little-known naval war between North and South in 1861. A rousing tale of derring-do, filled with blockade-runners, sea raiders, and tempting Southern belles.

THE GRAND PORTAGE by walter O’Meara. (Bobbs-Merrill, $3,00.) The proud stand of a Yankee fur trader against the cold, the savage rivalries, and the piercing loneliness of the Northwest —and his slow recognition of an Indian woman’s love,

VENTURE IN THE EAST by Bruce Lancaster. (Atlantic —Little, Brown, $3.00.) A story of seventeenthcentury Japan when the Dutch East India Company was struggling to hold its rich precarious monopoly and when no white women were allowed, hut one got in.

WESTWARD GROSSING by Humphrey Barton. (Norton, $3.50.) The log ot the 25-foot sloop vertue’s 47-day passage from England to New York, one of the smallest yachts ever to make it from East to West.

SEAGOING GAUCHO by Ernesto Uriburn. (Dodd, Mead, $3.00.) A leisurely eruise, by four Argentinians, with pleasant shore excursions, from South America to Africa and the Mediterranean, and a return via New York. Two years and 27,500 miles.

NORTH ATLANTIC by Adlard cCles. (Norton, $3.50.) The adventures of three British yachts that came here for the Bermuda race last year, and followed it by racing home across the Atlantic to Plymouth. Handsomely illustrated.

MODERN FRANCE edited by Edward Mead Earle. (Princeton University Press, $6.00.) A group of American scholars survey the problems and prospects of the fourth Republic, discussing politics, economies, science, letters, and “ The Decline of The French Elan Vital.” A comprehensive, thoroughgoing, and authoritative

INDIA AFIRE by Clare and Harris Wofford. Jr. (Day, $4.00.) A young American couple turn in a serious minded report on the India of today, stressing that it is afire with the same revolt which the Communists have exploited in China, but that it can still be a rallying point for democracy. They urge the United States to join hands with India in a vast development program for Asia.

REARS IN THE CAVIAR by Charles W. Thayer. (Lippineott, $3.50.) A West Pointer who became the third secretary at our Embassy in Moscow in the 1930s writes an amusing account of the unpredictable Russians before they became belligerent.