FICTION

HOT FLASHES by Barbara Raskin (St. Martin’s: $4.95). Three active middle-age women come to Washington to bury a friend, and discover previously unrevealed facets of their friendship.

GIFT OF GOLD by Jayne Ann Krentz (Popular Library: $3.95). Attacked one night, Verity Ames is saved by a mysterious stranger. Two months later, unrecognized by Verity, the mysterious savior walks into her California restaurant.

THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION by Stephen McCauley (Washington Square Press: $6.95). A Modern romance: Two people, George and Nina, forge a relationship in New York that takes some doing, since George is gay, and Nina wants him to be the father of her baby by her overbearing boyfriend.

TASS IS AUTHORIZED TO ANNOUNCE by Julian Semyonov; translated by Charles Buxton (Avon: $4.50). Best-selling Soviet writer devises a plot wherein a CIA agent and neo-Nazis are involved in sinister activity, and KGB agents are the heroes.

NIGHT OF THE CRASH-TEST DUMMIES: A Far Side Collection by Gary Larson (Andrews & McMeel: $5.95). Ninth in Larson’s cartoon collection.

NONFICTION

LOOKING FORWARD by George Bush with Victor Gold (Bantam: $4.95). Autobiography of the Republican presidential hopeful.

FILM FLAM: Essays on Hollywood by Larry McMurtry (Touchstone: $6.95). “Terms of Endearment,” “The Last Picture Show” and “Hud” are three of McMurtry’s novels that have been turned into mega-movies. He writes of the exhilaration and exasperation of screenwriting.

IN THE COMBAT ZONE by Kathryn Marshall (Penguin: $7.95). Some of the stories of the 33,000 to 55,000 women who were in Vietnam as nurses, volunteers, decoders, secretaries, cartographers, clerks, and air traffic controllers.

REASONS TO BELIEVE: New Voices in American Fiction by Michael Schumacher (St. Martin’s: $8.95). Portraits and conversations with some of the dominant writers of new American fiction; includes Jay McInerney, Mona Simpson, Tama Janowitz, Raymond Carver et al.

SPYCATCHER: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer by Peter Wright with Paul Greengrass (Dell: $4.95). Banned in Britain, this expose is written by a disillusioned former MI-5 (equivalent to the CIA) intelligence officer.

SELF HELP / REFERENCE

THE WHOLE FOODS ENCYCLOPEDIA: A Shopper’s Guide by Rebecca Wood (Prentice Hall: $14.95). First developed as a tool for health food employees, this guide can get you through the selection, storage and use of natural foods efficaciously with indexes on the nutritional value, medicinal properties, best quality and cooking techniques.

LIT BIZ 101: How to Get Happily, Successfully Published by Ray Mungo (Dell: $7.95). How to break into print, by someone who has done so.