The Sherwood Anderson Diaries, 1936-1941

These ""desk diaries'' aren't exactly absorbing reading, since they are little more than casual daily jottings Anderson made during the last years of his life, but the keen student of his creative work may find them of interest. Published for the first time, they largely consist of Anderson's terse record of the weather, his physical and psychological health (both often precarious), the days when he could or couldn't write, books he read, people he met, places he visited in the U.S. and Mexico. There's the occasional sharp, if cryptic, impression: Anderson took ``a great fancy'' to Padraic Colum, found Katherine Anne Porter ``a cold woman'' and Shaw's Man and Superman ``a great bore.'' It's not easy to find the wheat among the chaff, however, and even the wheat is none too nourishing. Campbell's books include Sherwood Anderson: Centennial Studies. Illustrations. (May)