Briefly Noted

Edward Martin Potoker '53 is the author of Ronald Firbank in the series of Columbia Essays on Modern Writers. Firbank's many novels, and his place in literary history, have been the subject of widely diversified opinion, and Prof. Potoker "tries to reconcile the disparate and often desperate criticisms made about Firbank and his works." He is a man who has been "considered variously baroque and rococo, Catholic and pagan, amoral and immoral, decadent and robust, a minor classic and a major mistake." The author believes that whatever the final judgment, Firbank made three important technical contributions to the novel, all highly idiosyncratic: structure, the art of dialogue and elements of comic organization. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969. 48 pp. $1.

The text for Designers of Order: TheStory of Accountancy Briefly Told is by Steward Schackne '27. He traces the history of accounting, from clay tablets to the CPA, spelling out in detail the important part the latter plays in our complex modern society. "All of us today," he says, "as consumers and taxpayers, as owners of insurance policies and savings deposits, or as businessmen and investors - we are all affected by the art and science of accountancy." Mr. Schackne, in this handsomely designed little volume, tells just what that art and science are all about. New York: American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, 1970.