He worked at a bank but disliked the job, so he quit. He turned to writing light fiction, a decision that proved to be fortuitous: His short stories and novels were so good that he became one of the ...

QUICK SERVICE—P. G. Wodehouse—Doubleday, Doran ($2). Few noises are more thrilling than the shrieks of pleasure with which non-stop readers of Pelham Grenville Wodehouse sometimes curdle the late ...

Making a reader cry is often surprisingly easy. Combine a pair of star-crossed lovers, make sure that at least one of them has an incurable and fatal disease, add in a few poignant speeches that ...