Bradley beam., 1945-03-03
1a SPEAKING
 0E \SB BOOKS
JOE PRIVATE SAYS

When March roars in like lion there's nothing more appealing Cor is there?) than comfortable chair, a good book. Here are three sug- gestions for your March evenings:
 MEET JOSEPHINE
 It is with reluctance that we in troduce to the men of Bradley Field another fascinating woman they won't know whether to love or hate. Reluctance because we feel that Ben Ames Williams in Strange Woman and Leave Her to Heaven" has blasted the female sex more than enough without Tarkington taking up the torch! But you're going to hear lot about Josephine in the next few weeks. She's headed for the best seller lists via the pages of Booth Tarkington's latest novel, Image of Josephine", a story of turbu- lent woman. At first glance, Jose phine Oaklin seems to have every thing beauty, wit, wealth, and an impressive knowledge of all things except herself. Yet she manages to make herself thoroughly despised. Left at the church for the second time she finds herself badly in need of a fiancee, and Lieutenant Bailey Fount, back from the Pa cifc with shattered nerves and a string of medals, is easy prey. How she drives him through a series of hoops for her amusement, war neurosis and all, does not make for pretty reading, but it does make a good novel. 'Image of Josephine" is a worthy addition to the Tark- ington library of American classics.
 INSIDE CHINA
 China is big, baf1ing, and be- wildering. It needs someone wholly cognizant of it's problems to inter pret it. No one in the world is more properly equipped to write about it than Lin Yutang and his "Vigil of a Nation" supports that statement. With his usual color and warmth combined with biting outspoken- ness, MT. Lin reports his observa- tions on wartime China during a six months visit there in 1943 and 1914. He stayed at country inns and governors houses. He talked with Chinese troops and American troops, with Japanese prisoners, with families and public men, scholars and school children. He inquired closely into the plans for postwar reconstruction and he speaks frankly of the government difficulty in putting into effect it's program for democracy. America has needed such book. It inter prets China from the inside, honest ly, with critical and historical per spective without embellishments or distortions. Here is evidence indeed, that the "never-changing East" actually has changed, and with as- tonishing speed.
 SUSPENSE AND EXCITEMENT
 A letter from Iceland, empty ex- cept for theater program, sets off a tale of furious action in which an attractive young American couple find themselves both pur- sued and pursuers in an unusual plot. The book in which all this happens is "The 17th Letter., by Dorothy Disney, well known mys- tery writer. Redoubtable is the word for Mary, the blonde beauty who plays detective in the story. Like the Mounties, she always gets her man!
 Just a year ago this week our BEAM column contained a para graph telling you about the Base Library, it's book collection, mag azines, newspapers, reference col lection, study tables, comfortable chairs, music programs, all yours in return for just one thing-IN- TEREST. This week we wish to thank you for your contribu- tion to our progress. Statistics cho1u that dl1rinU the mast