The Price of the Ticket (St. Martin’s),...

The Price of the Ticket (St. Martin’s), The Evidence of Things Not Seen (Holt, Rinehart & Winston), James Baldwin. “ ‘The Price of the Ticket’ includes all of Baldwin’s key essays, detailing his progress from the relative optimism of the ‘50s and ‘60s, to a bleaker militancy in the ‘70s, to a somewhat mystical concern in the ‘80s with future generations . . . . ‘The Evidence of Things Not Seen’ (in a lengthy meditation on the Atlanta child-murder case) challenges our most treasured sureties . . . . The consistency of Baldwin’s witness is impressive, but the intransigence of his listeners, and of racial oppression in general, remains troubling” (James A. Snead).

The City of Joy, Dominique Lapierre; translated by Kathryn Spink (Doubleday). “Though this book is a descent into the Dantesque hell of Third World poverty that makes the works of Dickens and Zola look like children’s fairy tales . . . it is finally an uplifting experience for the reader who perseveres. Indeed, it is a hopeful experience, redeemed by the grace of those who endure the futilities and deprivations of poverty with quiet dignity and gentle strength” (Jeff Dietrich).

The Bone People, Keri Hulme (Louisiana State University). A mute and battered child and his foster father break into the house of a painter who lives in chosen isolation on a South Island beach in New Zealand. “The mysteries of their lives unfold gradually as (Keri) Hulme alternates among the three points of view. (She) is a writer who trusts her voice and accepts her inner reality as valid” (Ursula Hegi).

Einstein in America: The Scientist’s Conscience in the Age of Hitler and Hiroshima, Jamie Sayen (Crown). “Thoroughly researched and elegantly written . . . . The book’s power derives less from its exposition of Einstein’s grand social and political ideas than from the rich trove of anecdotal detail the author has assembled to support them” (John Wilkes).

Inner Tube, Hob Broun (Knopf). “The author is a 1960s child carrying out a 1980s rebellion. The revolution over, politics dismissed as a necessary evil, the oppressors, this time, come from within . . . . Hob Broun offers a vision vitally needed to put life back into balance in this era of panicky optimism” (Alex Raksin).