Adventures in American Bookshops, Antique Stores, and Auction Rooms by Guido Bruno is about the art of bookselling and the places where books are sold. Bruno writes to teach about bookshops and book auctions. Contents: "The Romance of Buying and Selling Old Things, Auctions as Amusement Places, The Strange Discovery and Disappearance of Stuart's Washington, New York Book Shops, Den of a Pessimist, A Whitman Enthusiast..."

This ambitious undertaking is designed to acquaint students, teachers, and researchers with reference sources in any branch of English studies, which Marcuse defines as "all those subjects and lines of critical and scholarly inquiry presently pursued by members of university departments of English language and literature.'' Within each of 24 major sections, Marcuse lists and annotates bibliographies, guides, reviews of research, encyclopedias, dictionaries, journals, and reference histories. The annotations and various indexes are models of clarity and usefulness, and cross references are liberally supplied where appropriate. Although cost-conscious librarians will probably consider the several other excellent literary bibliographies in print, such as James L. Harner's Literary Research Guide (Modern Language Assn. of America, 1989), larger academic libraries will want Marcuse's volume.-- Jack Bales, Mary Washington Coll. Lib., Fredericksburg, Va. -Library Journal.