The Daily Oklahoman from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma • 142

Costain Pelves. Into English History and Finds Romance and Treachery 4 smgSSSKBsSMjli0' BELOW THE SALT by Thomas B. Cos-tain. Doubleday. $3.95.

Thomas B. Costain's newest novel, "Below the Salt," rolls back time some 700 years, and draws upon stirring historical events in England and in Europe to produce an extraordinary story of a lovely lost princess, the "pearl of Brittany," a direct descendant in the Plantagenet line, wvith a stronger claim to the throne than her wicked uncle John. Besides the love story of princess Eleanor this book provides a refresher course in the dramatic era foreshadowing and including the signing of Magna Charts, "that first guarantee of human liberties wrung from the vyorst of kings; John England." So wide a canvas would seem to tax any author by its very magnitude Not Mr. Costain, who ties in the distant past with the present in the persons of U. S.

senator O'Rawn, and young John Foraday to whom Richard O'Rawn dictates his many-threaded story. This Literary Guild selection is really three books, a very involved but skillfully balanced mixture of past, present and a foreseeable future, with high flights of fancy to embellish historical facts. It is probably one of Mr. Costain's most successful ventures; certainly one of his most ambitious and very readable, if perhaps not altogether believable. Winifred Marrs.

A painting by Harry Schaare shows a scene from "Balow the Salt" by Thomas B. Costain. This Literary Guild selection is a novel of manners, of chivalry, of history csniorad in a valorous knight's dedication to the love of his nobly born lady. Drama on the Trails Two fine collections of articles previously printed in two great magazines: "The Saturday R-view Treasury" (Simon and Schuster. $6.) and "The Will to Think." (Farrar, Straus and Cud-ahy.

6.) From the files of the Saturday Review, "The Saturday Review Treasury" samples the work of almost 100 authors who have written for its pages. In the introduction, Joseph Wood Kruteh makes pertinent comments on the changing literary climate singe the magazine was founded. This deserves a place on any reader's permanent shelves. From Think magazine, with an introduction by Thomas J. Watson and a foreword by Norman Cousins, "The Will to Think" offers substantial fare for who suddenly becomes a man on h's first warpath.

There are others, not all the same calibre, but that is the way of anthologies. I doubt, though, that many readers will want their money back on this one. There is an excellent endpaper map to help guide the reader along the various old western trails. Clifton Adams. Book Shows Photo Skill U.

S. CAMERA l5ft edited by Tom Maloney. U. S. Camera Publishing Corp.

$8.50. There's one thing about a photographer who has passed the snapshot stage he is never satisfied with bis work. The unending struggle to obtain clearer, more dramatic, more revealing aspects of the passing scene shows clearly through the pages o( text and illustrations in this year's S. Camera." Of the many objectives and uses of the camera, I like Andreas Feiningcr's philosophy, "I see in photography primarily a means for extending man's visual horizon." And he illustrates his point with 10 superb shots. Robert Frank's series, made under a Guggenheim fellowship, forms an interesting section of the book; and, as always, the photographs chosen from the collection of the New York Art Directors club provide startling impact both in black and white and in color.

The final section is devoted to Hungary's fight for freedom, with the scenes of horror and brutality which made the world cringe at the ruthless suppression of the revolution. Cameramen, regardless of experience of skill, will welcome this new volume. Fayette Copeland, FOR HOOF TRAILS AND WAGON TRACKS by msmbsrs of litem Writivs of America. Dodd, Mead. SI.50.

Here are 15 stories and novelettes by such writers as Mari Sandoz, A. B. Guthrie Ernest Haycox and Stanley Vestal, Oklahoma's own first man of letters. It would be difficult to go wrong on such a line-up. Editor Don Ward's idea is to tell the story of our Western frontier by presenting it in terms of its great trails.

Guthrie's "The Way an excerpt from the best seller of the same name, deals expertly with the naive, adventureous spirit of a pioneer family about to set out on the long journey to Oregon, in a way reminiscent of the people of that other great western migration about which John Sticnbcck wrote so well. "Call This Land Home" by Ernest Haycox is a gentle piece In which the author gives us a glimpse of man's hope, a woman's fear, and a boy's first love in far off Oregon, at trail's end, "Warpath" by Stanley Vestal is a telling little story of a Young Cheyenne and a Space Book Flood Here those concerned with current ideas. These articles were written by leaders in science, literature, religion, art, business, government and the professions. The 12h edition of "New World Writing" offers stimulating reading for a different audience, and excellent design has made the book easy reading from the physical standpoint. (New American Library.

50c) With ar sampling of poetry and excerpts from works announced for future publication and from others recently published, this volume like its predecessors contains brief biographies of the writers. Included are two essays by novelists on the novel. "The Image in the Mirror" by Harvey Swados and "Distractions of a Fiction Writer" by Saul Bellow. Both of these essays appear also in "The Living Novel," a symposium edited by Granville Hicks. (Macmillan.

$4.50) Now there's a book designed to start an argument, among readers interested in books as literature, or in writing as an art, a craft or a profession. Get some of your writer friends to read from this volume "Easy Does It Not" by Mark Harris, or "The Slave Cast Out" by Jcssamyn West, or "The Mystery of Personality in the Novel" by Herbert Gold, and I promise you the resulting conversation won't be dull. A curious anthology is "T4i Fireside Book of Cards" edited by Oswalt Jacoby and Albert Morcheod. (Simon and Schuster. $5.95) Here arc famous stories set against a background of bridge and whist and contract bridge, poker and solitaire and the various gambling games.

He-productions of paintings and drawings range from Persian playing cards painted on ivory, to cartoons from Ripley's "Believe It or Not." The Idea comes off better than in some such combinations of text and reproduced illustrations. A dosirablo gift item for the right person. "Tho Family Christmas Book" edited by Dorothy Wilson offers excellent selections for reading, stories about Christmas which range from tho work of Elizabeth Bowen to Fredcrik Pohl. But tho flavor of popular magazine cartoons doesn't blend well. (Simon and Schuster, $2.05) I Encyclopaedia Brifannica Phone GArfield 7-1534 or write I 1700 NE 52nd Street Children's Books For Christmas ROCKETS, MISSILES AND MOONS by Charles Coombs.

Morrow. $3.75. The world was never more aware of the possibility of space travel. The need for clear, understandable basic facts, about it was never more vital for the man-in-tho-strcct. Authors and publishers know this and books on all phasos of the subject arc dropping out on the market like a jack-potted slot machine.

The latest one, wittcn by an established writer in the field, concerns itself primarily with the various kinds of propulsion systems followed by a disuccuslon of "the parade of missiles." Guidance systems, nature's obstacles, space phenomena, and technical difficulties arc explained so simply that a fifth grader could understand them. For the most part, the author has confined his topics to the past and present of rockets and missiles with a brief look at the future. Trouble is, the future that he predicts Is here already, And It came without the global cooperative effort that "will be shared by peoples all over the world." Lt, Col. C. V.

CIIims. THE WONDERFUL WORLD OP" ENERGY by L. Hogbcn 99B THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF TUB SKA by James Fisher THH WONDERFUL WORID OF ARCHAEOLOGY by Ronald Jcssur $9S GIANT NURSERY BOOK hy Tony VUr; 995 HOIXIS RUSSELL BOOKSELLER Tun woNDiirtruf. WORLD OF MATHEMATICS by Hofihcn $93 THE WONDERFUL WORLD by James Fisher $95 FAVORITE POEMS OLD AND NEW Oyer 700 Poems $95 BETTER HOMES St GARDENS STORY BOOK Sforirj $9S MOLLIS RUSSELI, BOOKSELLER 42C, N.W. 10TH CE 2-8 OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA 426 N.W.

10th Phone CE 2-8155 CHARGE! ACCOUNT PAYMENT ENCLOSED NAME STREET NO CITY STATE 22 SUNDAY, DECEMBER IS, 1957 THE DAILY OKLAHOMAN.