PANGOAN DIARY

The panda lady writes another book (remember her The Lady and the Panda and The Grant Baby Panda -- published by Carrick and Evans?). This tells of her stay to Peru, at First to do a new book, which does not jell, and then to search for a rumored species of grey bear, for which a friend introduces her to a naturalist, Sandoval. He acts as guide and companion on a trip to the Pangoan jungles, and she includes a lively collection of yarns about the native Indians, the life she leads, the village, about Lucha her ""boy"", about bandeval and his dead wife, and the witchcraft in her family, about foreign penetration, and about the mystery of the land. There are mishaps, there are adventures, and there's a warmth in the telling, even when sickness forces her to leave. A good job of description and interpretation of this isolated corner of Peru, with plenty of the personal equation to give it general reader interest.