NEW YORK HOLIDAY

Once again Eleanor Early is reinstated as my favorite travel guide, this time with a book that makes me realize how little I know of my home town. She had slipped a bit in seeming too smart sleeky, but she's gotten away from that without sacrificing the buoyant enthusiasm and light, touch. She makes you see and hear and feel New York. She takes you by the hand and wanders with you into famous parts and odds parts, tells bits of history and biography, anecdotes and now and again gossip-- friendly rather than malicious gossip. She livens the scene whether it be the Bowery or Fifth Avenue, with stories about the people who were identified with the section generations ago-- or yesterday. There's plenty of practical information on restaurants, on museums, etc. It is not the sort of travel book that serves the purpose of a Baedeker or a Clara Laughlin, but it is the sort that is fun to read- and will be fun to use when I steal time to learn to know New York better.