Starting this week, “Nonfiction in Brief” and...

Starting this week, “Nonfiction in Brief” and “Fiction in Brief,” the features previously seen in this space, are replaced by a recurring cycle of four features: on the first Sunday of the month, “The Practical Mind”--advice, how-to and self-help--by Karen Stabiner; on the second Sunday, “Fiction in Brief”--a holdover from the old rotation--by Michael Harris; on the third, “Other Lives”--biographies, autobiographies and memoirs--by Chris Goodrich; and on the fourth, “The Mind’s Eye”--new ideas and current affairs--by Alex Raksin. Sonja Bolle, recently the main “Nonfiction in Brief” reviewer, has lately become a Book Review assistant editor. Alex Raksin, her predecessor in the same slot, has also become an assistant editor. Georgia Jones-Davis, assistant editor since 1984, will assume Karen Stabiner’s recent duties as one of the two reviewers responsible for another Book Review monthly feature: “Storytellers,” our preview of ultra-popular fiction.

Of all these changes, the most noteworthy is the introduction of “The Practical Mind,” Page 6, which will cover books not previously much reviewed in Book Review. For at least part of the reason for the change, see Elizabeth Mehren’s “The Book Trade,” Page 12.