In the Rainforest, Catherine Caufield (University of...

In the Rainforest, Catherine Caufield (University of Chicago: $9.95). While Theodore Roosevelt is no longer around to propose plundering the Amazon, his misinformed convictions about the forest are shared today by Brazilian leaders looking for a way out of the nation’s fiscal crisis. “Surely such a rich and fertile land,” Roosevelt proclaimed, “cannot be permitted to remain idle, to lie as a tenant-less wilderness, while there are such teeming swarms of human beings in the overcrowded, over-peopled countries of the Old World.” Though the former President makes few appearances in these pages, it is his attitude that concerns Catherine Caufield, an American journalist. Caufield points out that soil in the jungle is arid, not arable, and shows why “the wilderness” is anything but “tenant-less”: Spanning only two percent of the globe, rain forests contain 40 to 50 percent of the world’s creatures, many serving vital functions, such as regulating world rainfall and preventing cancer. The Amazon is putting up formidable resistance to developers--corroding power generators, for instance--but even a deadly weapon like the sandbox tree, which has nasty spikes growing out of its trunk, sap that can blind a human and fruit that explodes and sends its poisonous seeds flying for 60 feet, won’t be enough to battle 12-mile-long dams and a planned mining project that would span an area the size of Great Britain and France.

Corporate Combat: Military Strategies That Win Business Wars, William E. Peacock (Berkley: $3.95). The Objective: Capitalize on renewed interest in management techniques and military combat by writing a book that analyzes corporate maneuvers as if they were military battles. The Strategy: Author, a graduate of Harvard Law School and a former assistant secretary of the Army, implies that similarities exist between the Iran-Iraq war and the attempt of the New York Daily News to take over the New York Post, or in another case, between the battle in the Pacific at Inchon and the attempt of American Greeting Cards to compete with Hallmark. The Tactics: Author’s comparisons are often weak (both American Greeting Cards and the Marines “consolidated strongholds” before their “attacks”) and inept (“A business executive, like a military officer, must be trained”) and tend to ignore distinctions: The card company’s chief marketing assault, for instance, was led by “Strawberry Shortcake,” a doll with a pink bonnet and a sprinkling of polka dots and strawberries that bears little resemblance to Inchon’s chief, Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Bliss, Peter Carey (Harper & Row: $7.95). “Civilization-flight,” the tendency of protagonists to experience self-renewal after leaving the city, is enjoying a renaissance in ‘80s film and literature. “Bliss” is one of the better examples of the trend. Harry Joy, an advertising executive in Australia, “dies” for a moment after a coronary, then comes to, convinced that he has been living in hell--his wife is having an affair, one of his agency’s major clients is creating carcinogenic products, and so on. Harry’s decision to venture into the wilderness is prompted not by some vague notion of Eden but by a conviction that individual creativity (specifically fiction in this case, for Harry becomes a storyteller), can help us rediscover our humanity. In the outland, Harry meets up with “refugees of a broken culture” who had only “the flotsam of belief and ceremony to cling to.” By telling stories, he manages to “cut new wood grown in their soil and build something solid they all felt comfortable with.”

My Father’s Glory and My Mother’s Castle: Marcel Pagnol’s Childhood Memories (North Point Press: $9.95). As if to apologize for composing “this little song of filial piety,” Marcel Pagnol, a French dramatist and film maker who died in 1974, observes that authors need not worry about disapprobation, for they seldom meet their readers face-to-face. Those writing for stage, on the other hand, must contend with “audiences playing the role of intelligent and distinguished theater-goers,” cheering, mumbling and booing with gusto. Pagnol’s apology was prompted mostly by humility, but also by concern about how his honest recollections about life in the South of France would be received--glorified in these pages, after all, is not only Pagnol’s deep affection for his family and deep respect for the Earth, but his fascination with the slaughtering of oxen and his thrill in shooting down rabbits. Pagnol’s own voice in this narrative never acknowledges anything wrong with morbid enthusiasm; the recognition comes instead from his little brother, who sees a dead songbird and protests, “No, no. I don’t like it. You must unkill it.” Cruelty, nevertheless, appears only as a backdrop to childlike exuberance in this 1960 work, in which love ultimately triumphs over everything but death.

NOTEWORTHY: Otherwise Engaged: The Private Lives of Successful Career Women, Dr. Srully Blotnick (Penguin: $7.95). Women, not men, seem now to be most fearful of commitment in a relationship, the author argues. She reports that fame is now “more highly prized than money, marriage or profession” and cautions that aggressive, competitive behavior leads “neither to a loving relationship at home nor to success in the workplace.” The Architect, edited by Spiro Kostof (Oxford: $9.95). Historians and architects reflect on the profession’s technological achievements, educational efforts programs and struggles with powers-that-be, from the time Daedalus designed the labyrinth of Crete to the time Walter Gropius revolutionized America’s architectural curriculum. The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer, Carol Hill (Penguin: $6.95). Highly-acclaimed novel about what happens when an astronaut who roller-skates through the halls of NASA, starry-eyed over physics, feminism, literature and space, travels to a world 40 million light years away.