The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 206

letters book notes WW II pays off for an author 1 I i by DICK LOCHTE Jack Higgins is getting a good deal of mileage out of World War II these days. His recent best-seller, "The Eagle Has Landed," about a Fascist plot to assassinate Winston Churchill, has just been filmed with Michael Caine starring. His new novel, "Storm Warning" (Holt Rine-hart Winston, Sept. 20), concerns the travails of a group of German Roman Catholic nuns who set sail on a voyage home from Rio as the Big One is winding down. The Literary Guild will feature the adventure.

Readers Digest is condensing it for its book club. And Bantam has picked up reprint rights for a tidy sum. Higgins' "Hell Is Too Crowded," a '60s suspense yarn, has just been printed in paperback by Faw-cett The author recently moved his home from Leeds, to one of the Channel Islands. lines, I simply forgot that every street, like every issue, has two sides and that much depends on clearly delineating them. I hope the oversight will in no way prevent book-store owners and browsers from finding each other.

Thank you, Charles May, for your organized listing of the major bookstores in the Long Beach area. It proved to be an efficacious guide through the downtown book market. I will confirm a personal favorite: the Academy Book Shop, owned by Constant Sims. An excellent "small" bookshop. STEVE FORRY Isla Vista Victims of liberation I am writing a book based on the problems caused by the women's movement.

Not all women were prepared to be liberated, not all women wanted to be liberated. For those who were not ready numerous problems occurred. Women who have experienced problems as a result of the women's movement are urged to communicate with me. Please include age, marital status, education and background. Thank you.

J. P. SKINNER 444 S. Kingsley Drive 222 Los Angeles 90020 Finding the park Concerning the August 1 Book Review: I was interested in the picture of the park you used on the front page. My husband and I have lived in Santa Monica for several years, but we don't think we have seen any park like that.

Could you please give us an exact description of where the park is, because we would like to see it in real life. LINDA TAYLOR Santa Monica The park is indeed along Santa Monica Blvd. but in Beverly Hills. The middle section, between Crescent and Rodeo, is called Santa Monica Park, but the whole strip (described by a Beverly Hills Parks Department spokesperson as running between Oakhurst and Whittier and Wfl-shire) is known as Beverly Gardens. Personal ink blots Michael J.

Bandler's review of my novel "The Brink" (Book Review, July 18), although very favorable, nevertheless gives the impression that the book is about American military and diplomatic policy from the 1958 Quemoy-Matsu crisis through the Cuban missile crisis to Vietnam and that the late Secretary of State John Foster Dulles is a character in the book. I am delighted that "The Brink" stimulated this searching overview, but neither Dulles nor President Eisenhower are characters in the book, except perhaps as offstage deus ex machina figures. The book is primarily an adventure story, a "nail-biter" as Bandler acknowledges, not a geopolitical study. Nor am I professing, as Bandler suggests, that dead men are always the losers. At its core, "The Brink" is generated by the conflict of two generations.

The first, the squadron commander, is physically and emotionally scarred by World War II and Korea. The second, the younger pilot, is no less capable, courageous or brilliant. Once! he is led to the brink, survives and sees what lies beyond, he outrageously rejects all the games and devices that brought him there. At least that is how I conceive "The Brink." However, I wrote the book out of my own experiences aboard an attack carrier in the Taiwan Straits and everyone will make his own Rorschach Test of my personal ink blots. RICKSETLOWE Toluca Lake Funny side of the street In the map of "Downtown Long Beach Book Stores" (Book Review, Aug.

1), the first eight stores are located on the wrong side of the street. This oversight aside, the series on geographic groupings of book stores has been most informative and enjoyable, indispensable to the dedicated browser. GLENN E. ENGEBRETSEN Playa del Rey Author Charles E. May (who supplied the data for the map) replies: Accustomed to perceiving streets on maps as single Books into movies Ray Bradbury Jack Higgins has completed a script based on his novel "Something Wicked This Way Comes" for Kirk Douglas' Bryna Co.

Jack Clayton will direct the $6 million Paramount release The Richard Shepherd Co. has staked out stage, film and TV rights to "The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer" by Douglas C. Jones. The forthcoming Scribners title is described as an alternative to history, employing the approach. Warner Paperback will reprint Photography has begun on "Jabberwocky," a film version of the Lewis Carroll poem.

Former Monty Pythonite Terry Gilliam co-wrote and directs the movie in which Python grads Michael Palin and Terry Jones will appear. It is described by its publicity release as "a medieval This month's Cosmopolitan is featuring a condensed version of Frank De Felitta's "Audrey Rose." The reincarnation chiller is currently being filmed by director Robert Wise for United Artists Gore Vidal is reportedly crafting a screenplay of Agatha Christie's "the Mousetrap" for producers Joe Kirby and Hunt Stromberg. Movies into books Before film-maker Eric Rohmer scripted his movies "Claire's Knee," "My Night at Maude's" et al he wrote their plots in novel form, titled "Six Moral Tales." Viking will publish the book in January ($8.95) With both "The Front" and "Network" set for theatrical runs in October and November, respectively, Pocket Books is releasing tie-in novelizations by Robert Alley, "Network" by Burton Wohl) Fawcett will materialize "The Great Houdinis," written by Mel Shavelson and based on the ABC-TV telemovie that he wrote, produced and directed for the fall Dell has delivered $200,000 for book rights to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," which director Stephen Spielberg is now filming. "The World Encyclopedia of Comics" (Chelsea House, $30) is a gigantic volume that covers the comic art field from its inception to the present. Editor Maurice Horn, with much help from an international team of authors, has gathered more than 1,200 entries (cross-indexed) covering strips, comic books, artists and writers.

There are many examples of artwork and more than 60 pages of color, unfortunately reproduced from comic pages rather than original art. In any case, the book is the first of its kind and a must for collectors Another item for the nostalgia shelf: This November, Prentice-Hall signals the arrival of John Dunning's "Tune In Yesterday." Its subtitle, "The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio," is a scarcely veiled reference to Frank Buxton's and Bill Owen's "The Big Broadcast," which covered the "golden age" from 1920 to 1950. LOS ANGELES TIMES THE BOOK REVIEW ROBERT KIRSCH Literary Critic DIGBY DIEHL Book Editor THE REVIEWS "The World in a Frame" by Leo Brandy. "The Education of Patrick Silver" by Jerome Charyn. "Zone of the Interior" by Clancy Sigal "The Bine Hawk" by Peter Dickinson "Touch Not the Cat" by Mary Stewart "Tune In" spans the period from 1925 to the present.

Its 500 pages include schedules, performers, sponsors, fondly recalled catch phrases and other bits of airwave esoterica. About people "Remembered Laughter," Cole Lesley's bio of the late Noel Coward, will be a November Alfred Knopf title Betty Rollin who is being considered for Barbara Walters' vacated chair on Today, has written "First, You Cry," about her fight against breast cancer (Lippincott, $7.95, Sept. 20) "Fiction! Interviews With Northern California Novelists" (Harcourt Brace JovanovichWilliam Kaufmann, $8.95 paper $3.95) consists of candid chats Dan Tooker and Roger Hofheins had with a dozen writers including Jessamyn West, Herb Gold and Kay Boyle Following Jean La-couture's ih-depth biography of Andre Malraux by a year, Axel Madsen's "Malraux" will be a Morrow September release On the newstands The August issue of Psychology Today contains the long-awaited results of a "happiness survey" which polled 52,000 readers to determine what makes people happy. The September Playboy, however, has unhappy news in the continuing saga of Watergate, Howard Hughes, and the CIA by Lawrence Gonzales which may not be exactly the kick-off the GOP was planning for Kansas City. I Correction: A few weeks ago, in discussing local recipients of National Endowments for the Arts, grants, I said that Gardner McKay's real name was George Cadogan.

It is. But it is also Gardner McKay. That is, his complete name is George Cadogan Gardner McKay. And, as for my statement that he is an actor-turned-writer, he corrects: "I acted for three years and quit 12 years ago. I've been writing since I was 15." "Hoyt's Child" by R.V.

Cassill. "Lugosi: The Man Behind the Cape" by Robert Cremer. 8 9 .10 "The Blackjack Hijack" by Charles Einstein. "Poetry of the Spanish Civil War" by Marilyn Rosenthal. THE FEATURES .6 Letters .2 The Puzzler.

J3est-Sellers Book Notes. .11 3 .11 West View. Children's Shelf..