Dear TIME-Reader:

PERHAPS you've already seen these two newly published books at your bookstore --on different shelves. One is an exciting record of progress in modern science; the other a fiendish satire on modern man's loss of identity. What they have in common is that both are the work of TIME editors.

As its title broadly hints, The TIME Book of Science is made up of the best science stories that have appeared in this magazine since the birth of the Atomic Age, written by Science Editor Jonathan Norton Leonard. They record advances on every frontier of contemporary science, from turbojets and thinking machines to Pharaohs and fossils. Many of these TIME stories were "firsts" in the field; many still stand as the most complete, clear and authoritative articles on their subjects--timely, fascinating, filled with fact.

AT the opposite pole is Nigel Dennis' fantasy, Cards of Identity. Dennis' first book, A Sea Change, won him the Anglo-American Novel Award in 1949. Dennis, who lives in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, England, has been a contributing editor of TIME since 1942, specializing in reviewing books. Now that he has written another one of his own, he seems to be creating a sensation among his fellow critics. Said the New York Times: "Cards of Identity may be remembered and read for some time to come." The London Sunday Times called it "one of the three or four most mercurially alert, unnervingly funny books to have appeared in the 20th century." Mused Novelist J. B. Priestley: "I should like to know what Mr. Dennis looks like. I do not want to imagine he has been sitting opposite me in a bus. When I meet that eye of his, I want to be ready for it." You will find TIME'S own report on Cards of Identity on page 121.

THE research that went into this week's cover story on Ed Sullivan and the frenetic television industry would make a book too. It was gathered by a dozen reporters and researchers--all of whom were so busy that some interviews were literally conducted on the run. Best break came when NBC's hyperbolic President Pat Weaver invited Correspondent Don Connery to ride home with him to Sands Point, L.I. On the way, Weaver's rented Cadillac blew a tire; in trying to change it, the chauffeur broke his jack. Weaver telephoned for another rented Cadillac, which took them to Sands Point, where Weaver, talking volubly and incessantly, showed Connery his telescope (for stargazing), his bongo board (for exercise), and his bound volumes of TIME, which he bought from the estate of the late Sinclair Lewis.

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