Letter from Israel by Amos Elon. Prime Minister Menachem Begin resigned in midterm in Sept. 1983. He has since lived in self-imposed house arrest. His breakdown is symptomatic of the moral agony, the political failure, the economic muddle, &the military crisis that terminated his 6-year rule: a nation demoralized, divided against itself as...

Books by William Maxwell.

Comment by Lawrence Weschler. Comment about killings&disappearances in Guatemala told to writer by 2 women, Christine&Barbara, (not real names.) Christine was going back soon&Barbara wanted to but couldn't because of death threats due to her active pursuit of her husband, who"disappeared"2 years ago. Witnesses said he...

Fiction They All Went Up to Amsterdam by Alice Mattison. Writer is putting six children to bed for their naps. Some are babies, and some are a little older. She is probably at a nursery school or day care center. Tells how she settles each child, reading them books, singing songs, and rocking in the rocking chair. When she rocks...

The Current Cinema LIVING OUT A SONG by Pauline Kael.

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

In the Garden by Sidney Wade. The other night I stepped...

The Talk of the Town Developments by William McKibben. Illustrated first part of two part Talk story. Writer illustrates with three drawings the different ways that people looked at history. Writer says that when they broke up A.T. & T. and people had to choose which company to buy their phones from, some began to look at history as...

Fiction What It Was Like, Seeing Chris by Deborah Eisenberg. Laurel, a high school freshman, had problems with her eyes& saw Dr. Wald in the city after school one Thursday a month. After her appointments, she took a taxi to her sister Penelope's dancing school where her mother picked them up. Laurel's best friend Maureen was sleeping with Kevin...

A Wartime Childhood ENGLAND, FIRST AND LAST by Anthony Bailey. A WARTIME CHILDHOOD about a boy returning to his family in England after 4 years in Dayton, Ohio, where he had been sent in 1940 to wait out the war. There he had lived with Otto and Eloise Spaeth and their children. Tells about his return home and settling in...

The Talk of the Town JungleWorld by Emily Hahn. Talk story about JungleWorld, the new Bronx Zoo exhibit representing the jungles of Asia, which is placed next door to the Wild Asia exhibit. "We've been building it for 5 years," James Doherty, the general curator of the N.Y. Zoological Society, told writer the other day... "It isn't quite finished...