Dayton Daily News from Dayton, Ohio • 34

Dyton Daily Nw May 7, 1989 New marketing scheme places ads in books Musty letters tell the story in 'China Journal' By Sam Rubin Oberlin College in Ohio sent scores of dedicated missionaries to many countries to spread the Gospel. Charles and Eva Jane Price were sent to the wrong place at the wrong time and it cost them and their small daughter their lives. Eva was a prolific letter writer and kept up a constant stream of correspondence between her small family's home In China's remote Shansl province and their relatives and friends back in America. Though the Prices knew very little of Chinese life and culture, they depended on their abundant faith to try to convert the 'heathens" they were dispatched to win over to Christianity. The time was September of 1889 to early 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion.

This was an uprising that was directed mainly against foreigners and Chinese Christians. A Chinese secret society known to foreigners as "The Boxers" led the rebellion. The Chinese name of the organization meant "Society of Harmonious Fists." Members of other secret By Betty DietzKrebs ARTS EDITOR First time we heard about the marketing whiz Christopher Whittle was not so long ago when he and his company were sending commercial-spiked television into some class-. rooms. Then he came up with the idea to package magazines for doctors' waiting-room reading.

(Those dog-; eared old Reader's Digest copies weren't Intriguing enough?) 1 Now Whittle has topped himself. i.He's dreamed up a marketing technique that will make some readers and writers feel right at home. He's packaging books and specially com- missioned hardcover, non-fiction books by nine writers who are also known as opinion leaders to write them. But what makes them different from all others is the fact they will contain ad i American soldiers I' I I i I 4 I i unaer Japanese guara i die IMcilUlfcXl Ull to POW camps during World War II 0 Unit 731 a wartime coverup UNIT731 Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II By Peter Williams and David Wallace Free Press. 303 pages.

$22.95 bite were investigated that the agony was unbearable and some lost their limbs was apparent." With all this known to the Americans, this astonishing volume points out, and despite superficial questioning of the Japanese officials involved within the International Military Tribunal for the Far East after the war, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, with the concurrence of the American government, decided to grant immunity to those involved in exchange for research data gleaned from the horrifying experiments. For more than 40 years the Japanese coverup was complete. Ishii had sworn all the members of Unit 731 to secrecy and such was Ishii's power that all the junior officers and all those who were in a position to know the most about the operation, took their secret to the grave. The Russians conducted their own Investigations of the Japanese BW program and one of their reports drew attention to the fact that American prisoners of war had been Involved in the experiments.

Lastly the authors conclude: "Forty years on, there can at last be no doubt about the horror of what these men did in the name of science. Ishii's 'secret of secrets' can no longer hide behind a sordid deal, struck by men who knew better but who clung to that dangerous adage: the end justifies the means. The Japanese tampered with, and destroyed, the lives of others In their efforts to produce what they thought, erroneously, would be the ultimate weapon of war." societies and the national militia also joined the Boxers. Together they murdered 231 foreigners and many Chinese Christians, including the Prices. After it became impossible to get letters out of China, even as Eva and her husband awaited with stoic determination and religious fervor the final attack from the Boxer forces, she kept a journal describing their hard work.

How the journal got out of China is not clear. The Prices describe how they had to endure hearing of their missionary friends' assassinations and how some of their Chinese friends were forced to recant under pressure from the Boxers. All of Eva's letters lay for years as dusty litter in wicker baskets in the homes of the Prices' grandnieces, Virginia Phipps of Des Moines, Iowa, Lucille Wilson of Woodward, Iowa, and Arline Caruth of Tucson, Ariz. Eva once wrote to their parents that if they happened to keep any of the letters they should please compile them into a "journal" and hopefully she would some day write a book about her China experiences. This then is the final testament of Eva and Charles Wesley Price stark, dramatic and a living legacy from a couple who dedicated their lives to the glory of God.

There is a foreword by Harrison Salisbury of The New York Times detailing the mood of the times of which the Prices write and an introduction by Robert H. Felsing (Ph.D) giving a history and background of Oberlin College and its missionary programs. CHINA JOURNAL 1889-1900 By Eva Jane Price Scribner's. 289 pages. $22.50 By Sam Rubin He is Shiro Ishii, a brilliant bacteriologist.

He was, before and during the second World War, to the Japanese Imperial Army what Dr. Josef Mengele was to the Nazi general staff in Europe. Both conducted outrageous, brutal medical experiments on human beings. Dr. Mengele was relentlessly pursued but never captured.

He is believed to have died in Brazil. Gen. Ishil survived to a ripe old age, was restored to high position after the war, and spent not a day in prison. And the American government helped to see that he remained free. Peter Williams, head of Factual Programmes of TVS in London and former newspaper reporter, and co-author David Wallace, research expert, have written a chilling, highly detailed and altogether appalling book about one of the best kept secrets of World War II.

It was a postgraduate student from a Tokyo university who one day was browsing through some dusty papers carelessly discarded in a box on the floor of a bookstore when he discovered that the papers looked like official documents. The contents appeared to have belonged at one time to someone with official army standing. It was full of symbols and numbers that further research helped to unlock one of the great secrets of World War II the horrors of bacterial warfare (BW.) Unit 731 was set up, under the signature of Japanese Emperor Hirohito, in a remote village in Japanese-occupied Manchuria. There started a decade-long series of work In which Japanese soldier-scientists carried out freezing, ballistics and vivisection experiments on "enemies" Russian, Chinese, American, British and Australian prisoners of war. The aim: to perfect germ weaponry.

A TV documentary led to the compilation of vast amounts of material from official ar- chives, from interviews with Unit 731 officials, surviving victims and Americans who helped Investigate the BW practices that were going on in the Japanese homeland and the outlying areas where the unspeakable practices were going on. Ishii based his Unit 731 in remote northern Manchuria so he could experiment on human beings. There, in what was a police state, he could be given an uninterrupted supply of human guinea pigs. With the unique data from human experiments Ishii believed Japan could outstrip the rest of the world in developing this new weapon of war. The authors report that in just one place, Pingran, 3,000 persons were sacrificed.

From one section of the narrative: "Experiments in freezing human beings were performed every year in the detachment, in the coldest months of the year the technique was: the experimentees were taken out Into the frost at night, and compelled to dip their hands into a barrel of cold water. Then they were compelled to take their hands out and stand with wet hands in the frost for a long time. Or else the following was done: the people were taken out dressed, but with bare feet and compelled to stand at night in the frost. When these people had got frostbite, they were taken to a room and forced to put their feet in water of 5 degrees Celsius temperature, and then the temperature was gradually increased. In this way, means for healing frost vertising.

The idea is not exactly new, If you remember those paperbacks of the '60s which contained a modicum of advertising, primarily for writers' schools and tobacco. Meanwhile, a lot of people in the word business are not really sure where they stand on the idea. You might be waffling back and forth just as I feel about those commercials I have to listen to when I call the telephone company to check the time. I try not to listen to the commercial for hospitalization insurance as I stand there, tapping my foot. But intellectually I know the commercial helps pay for production time.

One of the points seemingly in favor of the Whittle book project is that the plan is to limit the size of the books to 20,000 to 25,000 words, as compared to the normal book length of 80,000 to 120,000. The Whittle plan is for a length too long for most magazines, too short for most book publishing ventures. And a point that seems not to have been made in some of the early reaction is that the subjects planned for these books are not likely to make them best sellers in a way they would compete with some of the sex-and-skin tales or the horror flights of imagination. At the same time the writers committed so far should have something important to say about vital issues. What they have to say may be more important than whether the words will be a commercial success on their own.

Novelist James Atlas, who is also an editor at The New York Times Magazine, will take up the relationship between education and culture. Edward Jay Epstein, who has written previously about "the invisible war" between the CIA and the KGB, is already at work on a book about Michael J. Milken, former "junk bond" dealer who was making more than $500 million a year. Richard Holbrooke, assistant to the secretary of state during the Carter administration, is reported to be writing about whether business executives should care about foreign policy. Just business executives? The same question might also apply to the truck drivers and dock loaders.

The philosophy for the books, of course, may also have to do with what kinds of advertising will be included. Should the ad department try to schedule a particular beer ad if the subject comes up in the text? Or suppose some corporate CEO puffs on a pipe insert a fine tobacco blend? Or a book dealing with health a full page on oat bran? Is there a line to be drawn in this project? The real question probably has to do whether the plan will fly. Reviewed by Sam Rubin, former telegraph editor and frequent contributor to the book page. 'Lies not great, and that's the truth Reviewed by Sam Rubin, former telegraph editor and frequent contributor to the book page. GARDEN OF LIES By Eileen Goudge Viking Penguin.

528 pages. $19.95. ing from Brian, Rose fears the worst and throws herself into a career as a paralegal. At the law firm, she attracts the attention of Max, a law partner, who is unhappily married. He becomes her mentor.

Back in Vietnam, a healing Brian falls in love with Rachel and even returns to action to save her life when she gets captured by the enemy. The picture of the handsome couple, who promptly get married, gets flashed around the world. And guess who sees it back home? The emotions keep on rolling. Later, when Rachel gets sued for malpractice involving a difficult delivery, guess who is called upon to defend her? The trial near the end of the book brings together all the lives, loves and lusts of the main characters in the book, even the mother, who is reunited with her Greek lover after her husband dies. As Hercule Poirot once said, keep these clues in mind.

A ruby earring. A plane ticket to California. And a blueprint. By Laurie Denger If you are looking for great literature, you won't want to pick up Gardens of Lies. But if you are looking for summer reading, a trashy turn for your glands and a sleepless night, you've come upon the right book.

You won't put it down until you've finished. Gardens of Lies is about a switch at birth of two baby girls. The mother, who does the switching, fears her wealthy husband will not accept the dark-complexioned child born from her affair with a Greek laborer. A timely hospital fire allows her to swap babies with her roommate (who dies in the fire). The roommate had given birth to a fair-skinned baby.

Time goes by and the girls grow up. The fair Rachel has things pretty easy for a while. She decides to be a doctor and falls in love with another doctor, named David. An unwanted pregnancy turns her life upside down. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the dark-skinned Rose has an even darker childhood.

With her "mother" dead in the fire and her father killed in World War II, Rose is raised by her deeply religious and deeply disturbed grandmother. The grandmother notes that Rose looks nothing like her sisters and suspects the dead mother of cheating on her saint of a son. Rose grows up much like the hired help in the family. Her only salvation seems to be her slightly older friend Brian. He protects her from neighborhood bullies, wipes the tears caused by family disputes and relieves her of her virginity.

But like her counterpart Rachel, fate is not kind to Rose. Actually, it's not too tender either for Brian, who, while in Vietnam, is seriously wounded. Then, would you believe it, guess who turns up as Brian's doctor? Bingo. The disillusioned Rachel, who gave up her stateside "doctor-hood." But why, you might ask, doesn't Brian stay true to Rose? The devilish grandmother rears her ugly head. It seems she has been keeping his letters to Rose a secret.

After six months of not hear -w -Yt i Eva Jane Price (L) with husband Charles, and daughter Florence Reviewed by Laurie Denger, a staff writer for the Dayton Daily News. "2 It Fiction Last Week 1. THE SATANIC VERSES Salman Rushdie, 19.95 1 2. A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANYJohn Irving, $19.95 2 3. STAR Danielle Steel, 1 9.95 3 4.

THE NEGOTIATOR Frederick Forsyth, 19.95 5. THE JOY LUCK CLUB Amy Tan, 18.95 4 6. WE ARE STILL MARRIED Garrison Keillor, 18.95 6 7. KILLS HOT Elmore Leonard, $18.95 7 8. BILLY BATHGATE L.

Doctorow, $19.95 8 9. THE DIAMOND THRONE David Eddings, $18.95 10. BREATHING LESSONS Anne Tyler, 18.95 10 in. 1. 1.

i inn jihij A i Non-Fiction Last Week 1 1. ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW. square rather than helpfully the size of a football field without the end news articles still fail to answer basic questions that come to most readers' minds. And yet while one hopes information providers realize the sensibility of these ideas, Wurman's notions about how we can best receive information are far less thoughtful and even dangerous in their implications. Writing in short, loosely connected information blurbs reminiscent of TV news, Wurman doesn't consider the many dangers in his recommendation that readers "personalize information by deciding what you want to gain from it, by getting comfortable with your ignorance." Wurman's theories ultimately encourage narrow-minded and self-righteous thinking, a weakness that Wurman himself displays in these pages.

INFORMATION ANXIETY, by Richard Saul Wurman. Doubleday. $19.95. Reviewed by Alex Raksin for the Los Angeles Times Info anxiety While an average edition of a major urban newspaper already contains more information than a person in the 1 7th century was likely to come across in a lifetime, most communications planners remain intent on opening the floodgates of informa-' tion even wider. And so one takes no small comfort in finding a planner such as Rich-' ard Saul Wurman, who is more interested in channeling that deluge of data into I meaningful knowledge.

Wurman offers his advice, based on the strategies he de-; veloped while creating the "Smart" Yellow Pages and his "Access" guides to cities and subjects, both to informa-; tion providers and informa-i tion consumers. Wurman's redesigns of old guides have been more I common-sensical than revolutionary, of course, but they have yet to catch on across America: Bank loan forms still use terms such as "pro-' ceeds to borrower" instead of "amount of the loan." peo- pie still define terms such as "an acre" abstractly little North Dallas WASP boy," is one of this generation's most prolific writers. Seeley travels some well-trampled terrain on his way to writing Too Cool to Get Married and Other True Stories offering, for instance, the familiar assortment of weird-people-I've-dated stories. Seeley's pieces also reveal his generation's identity crisis. "Many of us (who graduated from high school in the mid-1970s) feel cheated for having missed the Sixties," he writes.

Only two paragraphs later, however, he describes his college days as quite "loose, free, thrilling times." Writing in generalities seemed like a simpler place" in the early 1960s), Seeley never masters the difficult task of describing why so many of his friends wished they had been bom in an earlier era. TOO COOL TO GET MARRIED AND OTHER TRUE STORIES, by David Seeley. Harper Row. $15.95. Reviewed by Alex Raksin for the Los Angeles Times a strong signal of serious trouble ahead.

Though this is not likely to be confused with great writing, even the most casual reader will spot Osbom's skills as a show biz pro and a writer of screenplays. That he knows how to contrive a cliffhanger is apparent from the outset. Osborn counts among his accomplishments a novel. Open Season. MURDER ON MARTHA 5 VINEYARD, by David Osbom.

Lynx. $18.95. Reviewed by Betty Dietz Krebs. arts editor. 'Too Cool' uncool Many young adults now writing for urban magazines and city weeklies have ventured one step beyond the subjectivity of New Journalism, adopting a "true confessional" style in which they reveal everything from childhood fears to sexual frustrations.

The style seems to offer a vicarious form of social intercourse for a generation that is preoccupied with work. David Seeley, a journalist self-descnbed here as "a nice Robert Fulghum, $15.95 2. LOVE AND MARRIAGE Bill Cosby. $16.95 2 3. BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME 3 Stephen W.

Hawking, $18.95 4. LI FAITH Joe McGinnis. $21.95 4 5.. DON'T LOOK LIKE A GRANDMOTHER 6 Lois Wyse, 1 2 95 6. CITIZENS Simon Schama, $29.95 5 7.

INNUMERACY John Allen Paulos, $16.95 9 8. OUT OF THE BLUE 7 Orel Hershiser with Jerry B. Jenkins, 18.95 9. THE BLOODING Joseph Wambaugh, 1 8.95 8 10. GOLDWYN A.

Scott Berg, $24.95 Miscellaneous Last Week 1. GOING WITHIN Shirley MacLaine. $18.95 1 2. WEALTH WITHOUT RISK Charles J. Givens, $19.95 2 3.

8-WEEK CHOLESTEROL CURE 3 Robert E.Kowalski, $15.95 4. ONE UP ON WALL STREET 5 Peter Lynch. John Rothchild. 1 9.95 5. THE WAY THINGS WORK David Macaulay.

$24.95 4 Based on sales at 2.000 bookstores. David Osbom Murder, he wrote If the average reader thinks about Angela Lansbury and the Murder, She Wrote TV series while reading Murder on Martha Vineyard it should be no surprise. While the scene is Martha's Vineyard, the story is told by an attractive, widowed grandmother who likes to go on hot air ballooning trips. Ail of a sudden, the community is terrified by the discovery of a body floating in an ornamental pond. Not a pretty sight and.