The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green (St. Martin’s:...

The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green (St. Martin’s: $8.95). Ambrose Bierce’s “The Devil’s Dictionary” notwithstanding, collections of quotations are traditionally intended to inspire, which is probably why many feature quotes about cynicism (usually loaded with disapprobation), but not quotes that are cynical. A lexicon of cynicism, however, need not spell defeatism, as this collection demonstrates. Some inveterate cynics represented here do suggest “abandoning all hope”--from Bertolt Brecht and Oscar Wilde to Voltaire and, of course, Bierce, who defined a cynic as “a blackguard who sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.” The majority of the quotes, however, are optimistic, indirectly offering inspiration, for instance, to scientists (Danish physicist Niels Bohr: “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field”) and to journalists (I. F. Stone: “Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed”), and hopeful warnings to others (Aldous Huxley: “That men do not learn very much from history is the most important of all lessons that history has to teach”).

Mindscapes: Psychological Mazes for Personality Insight, Pino Gilioli (Macmillan/Collier: $12.95). As identity crises have grown in the 20th Century, so too have psychological tests designed to tell us who we are. Yet while Carl Jung helped start the trend with his word association test in 1904, the development of new and more elaborate methods of personality and intelligence analysis has largely been spurred on by those outside the scientific community--the U.S. Army, for instance, uses tests similar to some of those collected here. It’s not surprising, then, that this collection, intended to showcase the new sophistication of the tests, instead points to their underlying simplicity--despite new longer questionnaires, most of the tests peg-hole people into simple, overly pat categories--happy/sad, logical/emotional. In one of the exams, for instance, people favoring butterflies, horses, dogs and koalas are deemed “impulsive and often inconstant,” while those choosing ants, camels, eagles and monkeys “have a thoughtful temperament” and are, as a result, “confident and calm.” This breed of analysis is, of course, closer to astrology than to psychology, but like astrology, it is often fun, if not enlightening.

The Second Stage, Betty Friedan (Summit: $8.95). It is unusual yet encouraging that someone so closely linked to the women’s movement should be so skeptical of it. Betty Friedan is as aware of the “disturbing impasses” of the women’s movement as she is of its “exhilarating actions.” In this new and revised version of a 1981 book, she confesses that she has grown tired of the rhetoric that fueled part of the sexual revolution and skeptical of the notion that women should incorporate themselves within the male value system. She is sympathetic to those who believe that the growth of feminism might have something to do with the loss of “traditional caring”; in one chapter, for instance, she interviews a young woman disillusioned by the insensitivity of her boss, once a radical feminist: “All she wants,” says the young woman, “is more power in the company.” In fact, in this book, Friedan suggests that women abandon an unproductive, combative stance toward men (they too are trying to break out of the confines of male machismo , she concludes after a visit to West Point, where an Army major gives her a book titled, “Tenderness Is Strength”) and take on a broader agenda: Instead of arguing against pornography, she suggests, we should confront “the real obscenity--poverty.”

NOTEWORTHY: America’s Saints: The Rise of Mormon Power, Robert Gottleib and Peter Wiley (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: $5.95). This critically acclaimed book views the faith as a “uniquely American belief system (emphasizing) the family, hard work and self-reliance” and the church as “an increasingly potent political force . . . powerful, compelling, culturally complex and authoritarian.” Hemingway: A Biography, Jeffrey Meyers (Harper & Row: $9.95). One-volume study favorably compared to Carlos Baker’s biography from a writer who has lived a good part of his life in the “Hemingway milieu.” Return Trips, Alice Adams (Fawcett: $3.95). Short stories exploring a wide variety of (particularly feminine) emotions--pride and anger at children, sensual thoughts about swimming, reflections on marriage. Murder Must Advertise, Dorothy L. Sayers (Harper & Row: $3.95). When an adman falls down the stairs in the offices of a respectable London advertising agency, it looks like an accident--until a brutal succession of murders forces Lord Peter Wimsey to take on the case. This is one of six Sayers’ mysteries recently reissued by the publisher. The Cold War Swap, Ross Thomas (Harper & Row: $3.50). The United States decides to sacrifice one of its intelligence operatives in West Berlin in order to recover two defectors from Moscow. Also recently reissued is “The Backup Men,” another thriller by the author about murder and intrigue among spies. Hazzard’s Head; Lifetime, Scott Sommer (Washington Square Press: $5.95 each). The former enters the overanalyzed mind of a young Manhattan writer, depicting his dreams and obsessions with black humor; the latter collects a novella and four short stories about the struggle to find roots in transient America.