A Death in November: America in Vietnam,...

A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963, Ellen J. Hammer (Dutton), “is so thoughtfully and painstakingly put together that the reader is hypnotically induced to speculate anew on the precise meaning of the war and, if not to change, at least to re-examine his opinions and beliefs so long held” (Douglas Pike).

Fiction/1986, edited by Richard Peabody and Gretchen Johnsen (The Paycock Press, P.O. Box 30906, Bethesda, Md. 20814), “offers the reader a glimpse of the cutting edge of the underground press in single well-edited and well-presented volume . . . consistently readable and accessible” (Jonathan Kirsch).

Letters From Westerbork, Etty Hillesum; translated from the Dutch by Arnold J. Pomerans (Pantheon). “Etty Hillesum wanted to do more than helplessly observe the nightmare of the German occupation of Holland and increasing persecutions of the Jews.” In her letters, she records history with “steely poetics and a sense of the existential” (Georgia Jones).

The Collected Short Stories, Jean Rhys (Norton), “savor life’s small pleasures, indulgences and moments of defiance . . . and find in the memory of times past a way to alleviate the present grayness” (Carolyn Wakeman).