Fort Worth Star-Telegram from Fort Worth, Texas • 118

6-G FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM Sun July 9 1972 F77cr4714Tr' LEONARD SANDERS Judge Whitfield Davidson Offers Vivid Lively Book 7 0 0 114a 1 1 Books Impart Youth Flavor THE MEMOIRS OF WHIT FIELD DAVIDSON Texian Press Waco $6 ":4 40 :7 41 1i 0 4 i' I 1: 11 i1 tb 41" '4' '1' ') i r''J --1 'y-r 4 1 i '4 i it i t' i ii 4 4:: kN 1 ''''''(4 '1ii STILL STRONG of mind and voice though failing in eyesight Judge Davidson (his wife died in 1967) lives in retirement in a Dallas apartment high over Turtle Creek He tells a telephone interviewer inquiring after his health that he's still "jogging along" as he nears his 96th birthday on Sept 23 And he says looking back over the years that "my joy was in seeing the end of justice prevail" It's been a long time since Whit Davidson read his grammar books by the light of flickering pine knots It has been so long in fact that he and many of the rest of us are living in an altogether different world These memoirs bridge the two worlds and impart a message worth heeding: What was good for man then is good for man now FRUIT cifically designed and built to last 1000 years the Harrison County edifice is the site of spring and fall convocations upholding religious principles good citizenship and the wisdom of the Founders The Davidson memoirs like any good autobiography breathe the spirit of the man who wrote them And the spirit in this case is that of upright self-discipline and dedication to the rule of law The homely virtues of thrift honesty patriotism and reverence for God have no better champion At a Fort Worth-Tarrant County Bar Association luncheon honoring Davidson upon his retirement seven years ago Federal District Judge Leo Brewster called him "a typical Southern gentleman of the old 'school He is kind courteous and unselfish and walked straight on the path of justice" aseawwbuoktOmm swootwv" trip alone that started when he was 16 The photo was made somewhere in the Caribbean 1' Advanced age has conferred upon retired Federal Judge Whitfield Davidson the candor characteristic of those who have outlived all need of dissimulation His memoirs recently published as the capstone of a distinguished legal and political career ring solid and true The prose is old-fashioned and methodical but the story is lively enough The judge begins by recounting his Klan-fighting experiences in the 1920s when taking on the KKK was neither the healthiest nor most popular pursuit in which a Texan might engage Enlivened also by recollections of some old-time country murder trials the early chapters get Judge Davidson's memoirs off to an engaging start Thomas Whitfield Davidson was an East Texas farm boy who studied at home to become a teacher learned law while teaching then engaged in an active political career before his 1936 appointment by President Franklin Roosevelt as federal judge for the Northern District of Tex HOME LAP Robin Lee Graham with aid of string records his homeward voyage on an around-the-world Potential Life Style Richness Examined in Religious Studies Colorful Characters Illuminate Rare Era LIVING TO BEAT HELL! by Joseph McGloin Si Prentice-Hall Inc Englewood Cliffs NJ Vi95 At a time when "youth" invariably is employed as an all-inclusive collective noun occasional reminders are 7 needed that today the term is synonymous with a wide variety of experience One teen-ager Robin Lee Graham for several years made each arrival of the monthly National Geographic something to anticipate In 1965 at 16 Graham set sail from Hawaii in his 24-foot sloop Dove on an around-the world cruise alone His adventures which continued through to his arrival home in 1970 enriched many pages of the Geographic Now Graham has capsuled his story into a captivating book "Dove" (Harper Row $795) Graham includes all the material familiar to Geograph- ic at sea his romance and marriage in the South Pacific he also goes into the story-behind-the-story: The long months in foreign ports making repairs or awaiting the end of hurricane seasons the atti' tudes and estrangement of his parents National Geograph ic's role etc Graham's wife Patti figures much more prominently in the book Graham also describes his adventures after his hero'swelcome return Enrolling at Stanford he was unable to fathom either faculty or fellow students (they TALKED of renouncing the Establishment and material concerns Graham did that at 16) With the sale of his boat Graham bought a section of land in the mountains of Montana (where as Patti aptly put it "the bull is for Adds Graham: "We don't think of ourselves as running away from civilization but as apprentices learning to enjoy the natural world We believe that God will help us to understand bow we are meant to live" IN "WAR YEAR" (Holt Rinehart and Winston $450) Joe IV Haldeman describes adventures even more harrow' ing Although labeled a novel the book is based on actual Incidents and in the words of the author "was researched on location" Haldeman a native of Oklahoma and a graduate in physics was wounded in Vietnam The novel is filled with the language scenes and injustices of combat The story is taut lean and memorable And all hippies may not be what they seem Long sometimes billed as "King of the Hippies" was in Fort Worth recently with Karen Lyman promoting "Mirror at the End of the Road" now distributed by Ballantine ($395) and written by the Fort Bill spiritual leader-founder Mel Lyman The community consists of approximately 200 adherents including many who left successful professional careers to follow the group's intense spiritualism The family has houses in New York Boston Los Angeles San Francisco Kansas City and New Orleans and is reported wealthy Early this year Rolling Stone treated the group in a series of articles that in the words of one critic placed the family somewhere between the Mafia and the Charles Manson family A slander said Long a former political aide Ile took time to explain something of the commune's philosophy: Advocating a "new Christianity" the group preaches against drugs war protests and battling-the-system as self-defeating and self-demeaning The trick they believe is to form a core of strength to start a new way of life Long: "Rugged individualism has gone as far as it can go in the country We are a nation of individuals We don't know each other We don't understand each other There's no other way to go now but to establish contact again among people" GS DUET IN DIAMONDS by John Burke Putnam's Sons New York $795 a a This double movement which leaves us hollow before the coming of God is a 'dying into life')' In his book Dr Johnson explores this thesis by studying the lives of seven deeply religious range from the apostle Paul to the late Dag Hammarskjold and concludes with a proposal for a new life style to which the church can call secular man today It is a well written and most interesting book I am by no means sure I agree with his central thesis struggle striving and 'reaching out' seem to me to be indeed what life calls us to but very likely the difference of philosophy only reflects the difference of varying temperaments I recommend "Dying into Life" as well worth study and reflection EVANS 'Dying into life' writes Dr Johnson a Methodist pastor "has been the dominant theme in my thought for over 20 years" He does not refer to physical death though existentially that is a part of it But we live life under limitations and at times they press upon us "doubt despair dying and all that seems against us" bring a dark night of the soul in the midst of life Not by denying that but by using it is the author's theme the individual can win to new depths and a new and Christian life style In his own words: "Active reaching what we might call a 'growing into life' is not enough It takes a deeper experience first with a reaching out and then with all the patience and emptiness of waiting and receiving AS CITY ATTORNEY of Marshall for six years the young Whit Davidson never lost a case He later served a term in the Texas Senate 1921-1923 was lieutenant governor 1923-1925 and ran an unsuccessful race for governor in the 1924 Democratic primary Of particular interest to this reviewer and to all of the judge's many Fort Worth-area friends I suspect is the author's account of how and why the judge's unique tribute to his mother the Josephine Davidson Memorial Chapel came into being Spe Lumping Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Ruse 11 together in one biography makes good sense and good reading not because these notorious celebrities were lovers (They weren't! Diamond Jim did propose once but was rejected on the grounds that marriage might wreck a great friendship) but because they were more than close friends eating pals and consolation for each other in time of trouble Their joint adventures and separate lives are a true chronicle of that age of capitalism rampant Horatio Algers rising and lobster-palace society the years before and after the turn of the century John Burke with a true eye for anecdote tells their stories interwoven but distinct in a light tone tinged with affectionate irreverence Two such flamboyant figures make good copy of course Lilliam Russell accustomed to sweeping into Rector's and other lobster palaces with all the flourish of royalty was simultaneously still enough of the Iowa-born farm girl to confide to Marie Dressler: "You ought to try to eat raw oysters in a restaurant with every eye focused on you It makes ysz)u feel as if the creatures were whales your fork a derrick and your mouth the Mammoth Cave" Brady that salesman par excellence was the master of the grand gesture whether it was driving the first horseless carriage th ou crowded Manhattan or giving a I7thhour dinner party where guests wore smocks and consumed some 500 bottles of champagne A light and readable biography not meant to be an in-depth study of an era or its two principal personalities "Duet in Diamonds" is not without a thesis Diamond Jim and Lillian were Burke concludes not important in themselves but as symbols of that now-vanished world of carefree pleasure and abundance "Fleshly arm in arm ALTER Espionage Fiction Exploits New Tensions peculiar to the Middle East than do his cohorts THE LEVANTER by Erie Ambler Athenaeum New York $695 SHAFT AMONG THE JEWS by Ernest Tidyman Dial Press New York $595 THE ALAMUT AMBUSH by Anthony Price Doubleday Co New York $595 Once in a while the literature of religion brings along a book the reader puts down with the central thought: That nerson gets a heck of a lot of fun out of living! Such a book is this newest offering by Father McGloin It's a world of problems we live with but we miss the point in life if we fail to capture zest and Father McGloin has happily achieved that A fiercely loyal Jesuit he has put his typewriter and his sense of humor to the service of his society and his church They could not have had nicer weapons Some years ago Father McGloin wrote a best-seller "I'll Die Laughing" which told of the making of a Jesuit priest-writer Ile followed that with others I cl uding "What to Do Till the Psychiatrist Comes!" and all have had successful sales This new one may well attain the readership of his first book Theologically the writer is a firm conservative and in no wise apologetic about it Ile attacks with gusto the unhappy and critical brothers within the Catholic fold and while his views are not my views I admire his forthrightness He knows where he stands and stands there Here are anecdotes and dissertations on church teachers on Catholicism on teen-agers and on saints Here is a priceless account of his effort to order from his publisher LO copies of one of his books and how the attempt died heroically battling the red tape and computerized inefficiency of the modern bookkeeping system Here in a final chapter is Father McGloin's own personal credo The humorous illustrations Are ideal for the book and as in a number of the author's previous works are done in pen and ink by a friend and virtual collaborator a Wisconsin high school principal Don Baumgart DYING INTO LIFE by Pierce Johnson Abingdon Pr es Nashville Tenn $495 shootout in a New York jewelry store with Sten guns The novelty of a black detective who does violence to assorted whites has worn off now since Shaft became a household word "Shaft Among the Jews" has little else to offer except the tired city cop Lt Anderozzi who is there only as the foil the fall guy in Shaft's venture into the Israeli subculture Even with all belief suspended Shaft is getting a little hard to take: the author seems to have exhausted his inventions on the theme of race violence with the black man miraculously unscathed while outguessing everyone EYRICII The Near East has seldom been more tuzzling but the puzzle is well worked out and the respectful reader is content to sit back and let the commdum work itself out THE LIZARD IN TIIE CUP by Peter Dickinson Harper Row New York $595 Ernest Tidyman as knows by now wrote the screenplay for "The French Connection" and created a black James Bond by the name of Shaft who gets himself involved with the Middle Eastern situation in a most untidy way The black superdetective tussles with Israeli secret agents Arabs an Israeli girl searching for her father and a flock of Hassidim and jewel merchants When the author tires of his complications he stages a About the time all the spies had come in from the cold on the Russian front the Israeli-Arab hostilities opened up a whole new field for international espionage Eric Ambler who was writing about tension in the Middle East as long ago as 1940 in "A Coffin For Demetrios" and "Journey Into Fear" is back in Damascus with a thriller that is as good in some ways as the classic "Background for Danger" or "Cause For Alarm" although somewhat cluttered by electronic devices of complex capabilities Michael Howell is a man of nonviolence a "fractionally British" owner of a fleet of cargo vessels in the Mediterranean who becomes involved with Arab guerrillas that even the Arabs would like to be rid of The reader of suspense diction has come to expect a plethora of sado-masochistic detail along with a plot ingenious to the point of stultification Ambler is up to date on both counts but he seems more at ease among tensions HILL WANG HAS BROUGHT OUT the fourth (of six) in the Traven "jungle" novels "The Rebellion of the hanged" ($695) The publication is the first in this country (although the book was first issued in other countries in 1950) Similar to the other "jungle" novels but more dramatic in content "Rebellion" covers the conditions of the slave-labor mahogany camps in 1910 and the uprising of workers against the rule of Porfirio Diaz Hill is embarked on a program to make available all of the works of Traven the mysterious American writer who died in Mexico in 1969 Other notaple reissues: "Midas of the Rockies" Frank Waters' biography of prospector Winfield Scott Stratton has been republished by Swallow Press in a $6 edition First issued in 1937 the book tells the fabulous story of Stratton's discovery of the Cripple Creek gold fields The carpenter-turned-prospector dreamed one night of gold beneath a bush at dawn he found the bush and the gold Ills luck got better Ile became Colorado's richest mining king Swallow Press also has issued a companion volume "Conversations With Frank Waters" edited by John Milton ($4) covering Waters' life and career "Great Men Of American Popular Song" by David Ewen a standard reference work from Prentice-Hall has been enlarged to include current stars (Bob Dylan Johnny Cash Burt Bacharach etc) and released in a $1295 edition Admirers of the Star-Telegram comic strip Doonesbury will find the best panels collected in "Still A Few Bugs in the System" by Trudeau (Holt Rinehart and Winston $150) The introduction is by Art Buchwald THE LOWER SHELF Ecology Offered Starter Set side darter But one should take caution where there are carp Garlic and chives planted near rosebushes lettuce and peas help free the plants of aphids Parsley planted near rosebushes will keep away the rose beetles COOTER THE AUTHORS make the most of their minimal text Frank O'Leary an artist from El Paso has provided detailed illustrations There are some slivers of information the child will pick up along the way to be of everlasting personal value to him big things to know really For instance when he sees a O'Leary has sketched a mayfly here he can know that he is near clean water The same may be said for the fish known as the black Not Damascus or the desert but an island off the shores of Greece is the scene of Peter Dickinson's idyl of violence about a rich rich Greek living in a self-created world but in touch with the times to the extent of planning to turn a nearby monastery into a tourist resort Jimmy Pibble a semi-retired somewhat discredited British policeman is summoned by the Greek business man Thanassi Thanatos because he thinks the Mafia is out to get him English reserve almost succumbs to the charisma of his Greek host and the charms of a black woman revolutionary from America The British Home Office gets into the act and the dope trade and espionage take second place to an even more distasteful scheme: the dismantling of a priceless sixth-century mosaic of St Sporopbore and its smuggling out of Greece disguised as modem art With the Mafia drugs theft greed and the vanity of Thanatos Pibble has plenty going on without the added complication of falling in love But that is precisely what happens and his problems are solved only by a stray English girl named Nancy who paints phony icons for the monks at the monastery All in all Pibble has himself a time in Greece AREA'S BEST-SELLING BOOKS ::71 And still they come the books on ecology They roll from the presses in stacks and piles to illuminate and pollute Some stand out above the others "An Introduction to Pollution" by Harold Schlichting Jr and Mary Southworth Schlichtlng (Steck-Vaughn Comp an Austin cloth $295) should be an effective first book on the subject for young readers because of the total picture it presents The authors have distilled the vast subject to a well organized essence for a brief concise view The book extends a challenge to readers to learn more about the subject of pollution and to try to do something about the threat to man and earth Having received such clear perspective of the whole he Will be better able to react and more inclined to further reading on individual facets of the subject He will have an idea of how each subject breakdown relates to the whole IV IV NORTON AND COMPANY has two books riding heavily on developments in this week'inews As Bobby Fischer enters World Chess Championship play Tuesday chess writer Svetozar Gligoric will be writing the play-by-play for a book scheduled by the firm in-August The type will be set as the play proceeds And as the Democratic Convention opens in Ailami Norton has forces at work to solve any problem of credibility of the prime contender Sen George McGovern-Shirley Maclaine has a book scheduled from the firm Aug 28 entitled "McGovern: The Man and His Beliefs" Noting that McGovern has said "It takes a long time to get to know a fella like me" Miss Maclaine explains: "I have compiled this little book to help save time" (These are the best-selling books in the Fort Worth area as determined in a survey of Fort Worth bookstores) 1 I'm OK You're OK by A Harris 2 Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach 3 The Vision of Stephen by Lo lah Burford 4 The Art of Low Risk Investing by Michael Zahorchak 5 The Living Bible 6 Captains and the Kings by Taylor Caldwell 7 The Word by Irving Wallace 8 Aerobics for Women by Mildren Cooper and Kenneth Cooper 9 The Graphic Work of Escher 10 The Winds of War by Herman Wouk SAI1477A Four Novels Offer Reading Variety WEST TEXAS AFTER THE DISCOVERY OF OIL Richard Moore traces the de velopment of the petroleum industry from its beginning to the present $695 Elroy Bode's SKETCHBOOK 111 Portraits in Nostalgia 60 prose sketches and 8 short stories about Texans Texas $500 THE RESTLESS EARTH Reporting on the new bold new Theory about the shop of this planet by Nigel Colder $1000 SETH SPEAKS Join Seth on a journey beyond the universe of the five senses into the unseen and unknown By Jane Roberts author of THE SETH MATERIAL 8795 PAPERBACKS-- LETS GO: THE STUDENT GUIDE TO THE US CANADA $395 FIELDING'S SELECTED FAVORITES HOTELS EUROPE $393 SAILING RACING RULES THE EASY WAY $350 BARBER'S 1 BOOK 11a1 STORE A WILD JUSTICE by Francis Clifford Coward McCann New York $595 A short sharply written provocative little novel this one ends with a whimper I'm not convinced that the ending makes any sense It does an unjustice to what could have been an admirable story NORMAN ROCKWELL ARTIST AND ILLUSTRATOR This vOlume is luxuriously bound in the finest English leather with marbelized end papers and asigned cellot3Te print The edition is limited to 1000 numbered a collectors item! $600 Books Downtown Only OLDENBURG STUDY "Object Into Monument" an examination of the proposed monuments of artist Claes Oldenburg by Barbara Haskell has been published in a $895 editon by the Ward Ritchie Press of Los Angeles The book profusely illustrated focuses on the Oldenburg material that will be exhibited at Fort Worth Art Center Museum Thursday SIIOCK WAVE by Dorothy Salisbury Davis Scribner's Now York $595 CLOSE-UP by Len Deighton Atheneum New York $795 This is a big fat heavy potential best-seller It tells about the movie industry It has lots of technical detail and proof of good research in it The assumption is that millions of people are just dying to know more about the movie industry If you are buy it because Deighton puts the words down smoothly If you aren't forget it you'll probably get about as far as I did before skipping: Page 23 AL BICKHAM TO EXPLODE by Tom Ardies Doubleday Co New York $595 The discovery of a once-famous atomic scientist now become a robot due to radical brain surgery begins a classic little thriller that involves a plot by someone to detonate a nuclear device in the United States and stampede the nation into World War Not an original plot idea it holds together here thanks to the tough atmosphere reminiscent of the early Matt Helm books Ardies tricks us now and then by withholding information and tossing us red herrings but it makes for an entertaining evening ts reading 10) THIS IS ANOTHER of Steck-Vauglues Wings Books Series treating a wide range of concepts in science and social studies for students in the middle grades The series has included such books as "Astronomy" "Looking at Man's Past" "The Story of Chocolate" and "Toadstools and Such" Dr Harold Schlichting Jr is an associate professor at North Carolina State University at Raleigh and a research scientist as well as a write Mary Southworth Schlichting a coauthored with him two other Wings Books "Algae" and "Ecolo Three members of the IRA huddle in the freezing ruins of a building after British troops have driven their Irish rebel colleagues across the river One of the three is a girl One of her male companions is slowly dying The other to save his buddy's life sees a chance to trade the girl to other near-by refugees for some whisky and canned meat When one is driven to consider such amoral extremes the author seems to suggest there can be no win ners in the war that caUSCS ouchOodpient The story here is of a famous woman journalist who travels to a Midwestern university for a feature story on a research project and finds herself instead helping hivestigate a murder It's well written but dreary PLAY PUBLISHED "Lennk" the play by Julian Barry that ran on Broadway to enthusiastic audiences has been published by Grove Press in a $495 hardcover edition Thracknurtee 76102 Thrationortte ol 71 4212 gyOS THIS SUIVASE IS GOING edhgVem11LirjfteLliitlittia JAAEL04.