MEYER BERGER'S NEW YORK

This collection of the columns that appeared in The New York Times from 1953 to early 1959 makes lively and absorbing reading for inhabitants of The Changing City, for its many short marginal notes together with the longer pieces provide an omnium gatherum of the people, places and things that make up Manhattan. From trades and crafts, hobbies, and unusual personal objectives, to little known buildings, specialized shops, activities, to insects and animals and birds, the trees and flowers. This also describes schools, museums, libraries, notes historical links, locates many groups -- ethnic, foreign, social, - handicapped, - interviews many people and provides fascinating intelligence of the city's out-of-the-way figures and facts. Excellent as a few minutes' pick up; and an animated companion for Manhattan.