THE BEST OF COREY FORD

Corey Ford, Who died in 1969, was probably best remembered for his ""Lower Forty"" stories which appeared in Field and Stream. These cracker-barrel tales concerned members of the ""Lower Forty Shooting, Angling and Inside Straight Club"" and their solemn-to-jovial pursuits among the other denizens of Hardscrabble, New Hampshire. The men plan to break up an upcoming marriage to preserve their hunting rights; an early morning outing in a fellow clubman's hearse jolts a tippling farmer into taking the Pledge; and there's a misty farewell to a dying companion. There are excerpts here from Where the Sea Breaks Its Back, an account of Alaskan exploration, and then there are the dog stories (including the article, ""Just A Dog,"" which no dog lover has ever considered to be moistly excessive); and the lightly comic pieces like that middle-aged complaint which begins: ""It seems to me they are building staircases steeper than they used to. . . ."" The celebrity tales from Ford's speakeasy tribute are fairly familiar by now, but how many have heard the reason why Dorothy Parker named her canary Onan? The last entry is a tear-stained story about a dying young man who at the moment of his demise is reunited with his beloved dog across a long-ago stream. It's calculated to make you weep, and you'll hate yourself--but it just goes to show how an expert journeyman could recycle sentiment. A nostalgic selection.