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- January 4, 1982BOOKSBEST OF '81
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- FICTION
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- A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone. Three spiritually adrift
- gringos and a collection of exotic supporting players bump into
- their fates on the fringes of a Central American revolution.
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- Rabbit it Rich by John Updike. The third adventure of Rabbit
- Angstrom finds the ex-jock older, thicker around the middle, but
- still faithful to his love affair with the fading American
- dream.
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- The White Hotel by D.M. Thomas. A dark age revolves around the
- solitary figure of a woman analyzed by Sigmund Freud and later
- killed by the Nazis at Babi Yar.
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- Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. Several millenniums after
- nuclear catastrophe, a group of survivors huddles near "Cambry"
- (Canterbury) and tries to reinvent the English language and
- rediscover gunpowder.
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- The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving. The author of The
- World According to Garp introduces a sweet, dangerous dreamer
- who transports his odd family from New England to the city of
- waltzes and Wittgenstein.
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- NONFICTION
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- The Hour of Our Death by Phillippe Aries. One of France's most
- brilliant and original sociologists traces 1,000 years of
- changing attitudes about dying, grief and funerals.
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- Ernest Hemingway: Selected letters, 1917-1961 edited by Carlos
- Baker. Through four decades. Papa ranges forth on subjects that
- include the state of his art and the condition of his
- reputation, marriages and bowels.
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- Lectures on Russian Literature by Vladmir Nabokov. The master
- talks about the subject he knows and loves the best: the
- classics written in the first of his native tongues.
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- Mrs. Harris: The Death of the Scarsdale Diet Doctor by Diana
- Trilling. The murder of Herman Tarnower and the trial of Jean
- harris are given a shrewd, unforgiving analysis by critic with
- literary and moral sensibilities.
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- Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession by Janet Malcolm. By
- using the confidences of a pseudonymous psychotherapist, a witty
- and provocative reporter puts the "talking cure" on the couch,
- and wisely prescribes further treatment.
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